The Will To Succeed
by HiddenSpirals
Summary: Shanks see's something in Luffy that makes him decide to train the boy for the remainder of his time in the East Blue. With the power of haki and the gum gum fruit in his hands, Luffy will shake the Grand Line to its core and show the world why he deserves to be called the King of Pirates. Slight OOC Luffy. LuNa. Stronger/Somewhat Smarter Luffy! I do not own One Piece.
1. The Adventure Begins!

**Hey guys, this is a new story for One Piece that I've been thinking of. Recently I've been pretty hooked on the show and have been watching it on my free time and eventually came up with the idea for this story.**

 **So, the premise of this story is the idea that Shanks decides to teach Luffy about haki before he leaves Fushia village along with a few other things. Luffy will still have the Gum Gum fruit, but he is going to have the ability to use observation haki and armament haki when he starts his adventure. Luffy will be a bit smarter than he is in cannon and will also be a lot stronger. Luffy will not be insanely OP, at least not yet.**

 **I do want to let you know that parts of the story will be the same or at least very similar to cannon, but I think I found a lot of ways to make most of the events in this story deviate from cannon. We will start to see a decent amount of changes when we first get into the Grand Line.**

 **I want to do an extended crew, but I still haven't really decided on the potential crew members yet. If a good argument can be made for any individual characters then I will definitely consider adding them to the roster, as of now though, I can only think of two characters that I want to put onto the crew.**

 **Now as far as romances go, it won't be a major focus of this story, but it will have some Luffy/Nami involved. To see any other relationships happen you will just have to stay tuned :P**

 **For those of you that have been following my other story, I'm sorry that I haven't really updated. I've done some cleaning up and editing on the first couple chapters, but unfortunately, I was pretty busy with work, school and a couple family related things that pulled my attention away from writing. The story will be on hiatus for a while and I'll give an update when I get back to working on it.**

 **Anyways guys, let's get to the story.**

 **[ &]**

"I'm in your debt, Luffy…" Shanks, a man with red hair and a jagged scare over his left eye, held the sobbing child close to him as he kept them both floating above the gentle waves of the ocean. "Makino-san told me everything." He paused as the boy shifted in his grasp, gripping the man's shirt as tears fell from his eyes.

"You fought for us." The red head spoke quietly and sincerely so as to calm the boy down. Suddenly with a little more enthusiasm and volume, he told the boy before him, "Hey don't cry! You're a man!"

It took Luffy a moment to final respond, tears rushed down his cheeks and mixed with the ocean, "But, Shanks… Your arm!"

Shanks could understand Luffy's sadness and his shock, it was easy to tell that the boy felt guilty over the events that transpired. If Luffy hadn't eaten the devil fruit or wasn't taken by the bandit and attacked by the sea king, Shanks never would have lost his arm. Shanks looked down at the missing appendage, not even wincing at the blood flowing into the waters below.

"It's only an arm. It's no big deal, I'm just glad that you're alright." The red-head pirate started to make his way back to the coast, "Come on let's get you back to land."

Later that night

Hey Luffy what's wrong, why you looking so down? I thought you were a man?" Lucky Roo, a rather rotund member of the red-haired pirates asked Luffy, as he sat on the stool right next to him. Lucky knew that asking in a way like that, challenging the boy's manliness would quickly get him out of his slump.

It just so happened that he was right, "Of course, I'm a man! What do you take me for?" The small boy shouted back, gathering the attention of Makino and all of the pirates inside of the bar. The shout caused everyone to burst into laughter, everyone knowing that the boy would be teased endlessly.

"~I don't know~" Shanks said in a sing-song kind of voice, all patched up and not at all looking like he just lost an arm and a lot of blood. "I don't think I've ever seen a man, let alone a pirate ever mope around the way you do!"

Everyone in the bar could have easily predicted what was going to happen next and no one was disappointed by Luffy's reaction.

"SHUT UP SHANKS! I'M GOING TO BE A BETTER PIRATE THAN YOU ARE. JUST WATCH ME!" The boy shouted out at the top of his lungs as he stood up on his chair, trying to give the appearance that he was bigger than his hero. 'Trying' was the key word here because as soon as he stood up and glared at Shanks, the man took a swig of his rum and gave Luffy a good-natured slap on the back.

"HAHHAHAHAHA!" Everyone in the bar burst into laughter when Luffy fell forward, his face landing in the large bowl of stew that served as his dinner.

Makino couldn't help the giggle that escaped her when Luffy finally lifted his face back up and he was covered in the stew.

"Shanks, you jerk!" Luffy yelled in rage, causing another uproar of laughter, "Hey shut up!"

After a while, the bar calmed down from the fiasco, everyone went back to drinking and socializing until finally everyone in the bar except for Luffy, Shanks, Makino and Ben Beckman, the first mate of the red-hair pirates were unconscious due to heavy drinking. Ben was at a table in the corner of the bar smoking a cigarette, minding his own business. Meanwhile, Shanks and Makino were chatting while Luffy was quietly sitting next to Shanks, it wouldn't take a genius to know that he was deep in thought.

"Hey Shanks," The boy finally spoke up for the first time in what seemed like a long time to the chatting duo. "What's on your mind, kid?" The red-head asked Luffy, he was glad that the kid finally decided to speak up. This was probably the quietest the kid had ever been since they met almost a year ago. In fact, he was about to ask him what his problem was.

"Can I really do it, can I really become a pirate?" The raven-haired boy said. He paused momentarily to clear his throat with a sip of water before speaking again, "It's all my fault that you lost your arm today."

Luffy wasn't taking the events of today well at all, Makino and Shanks could easily tell that he felt guilty before he even spoke. "Listen Luffy, none of what happened today is your fault. I'm happy to have a friend like you, you stuck up for us when we weren't there to do it ourselves. Don't beat yourself up over it. Losing my arm was my choice, I would have done the same for Makino-chan or anyone on my crew. That was my decision Luffy."

Neither of the guys noticed the green-haired bartender blushing at the pirate captain's response.

"But if I wasn't weak then you never would ha… OWW!" The boy was interrupted by a fist to the head, "What was that for, you jerk!?"

"Don't whine because you were to weak, if that's the issue then you will just have to get stronger so that this doesn't happen again! If it makes you feel better, then consider us even. You fought for us against a group of bandits and I defended you from a sea king."

The boy quietly thought over what he was told, 'If that's the issue then get stronger!'

"Alright I'll do it! I'll get really strong and I'll be able to protect others the way you did for me! I'm going to start right now!" The boy hopped out of his seat and started running for the door, but then he stopped all of the sudden, "Hey Shanks, what am I supposed to do to get stronger?"

'Smack, Smack' The bartender and pirate both facepalmed at the kid's sheer stupidity. "Tell you what kid, I'm going to be here for another week before we take off for the grand line. I'll try and teach you a thing or two before we leave. How's that sound?"

"Really!?" Luffy's eyes were shining so brightly that the drunk pirates started complaining about it already being morning in their sleep. "When can we start?"

"Why don't you go get some sleep? We can start tomorrow." Said Shanks. With that, the kid left the bar after giving Makino a hug. The days events were catching up to him and he was really tired.

A minute or two after Luffy left, Ben got up from the table he was previously occupying and casual made his was over to the bar and sat in the same seat that Luffy was previously settled in. "So," He took a long drag from his Cigarette, "I'm surprised you want to train him, is it going to interfere with our schedule." To anyone, it would seem that Ben didn't like the idea of him taking the time to train Luffy. To anyone but Shanks at least, they had known each other for a long time and Shanks knew that Ben liked the kid as much as anyone else on the crew. He normally just liked to get to the main point right away.

"No it won't, I need the time to recover before we head back to the grand line and I'm sure the crew will enjoy the break." The pirate captain took a sip of rum, "You know as much as I do that the kid could be something special in the future, he reminds me a lot of my old captain. I just want to give him the tools that he will need to find his own way." 'I'm sure, he's the one that Roger was waiting for.' With that said the two men continued drinking and chatting until they blacked out like the rest of the crew.

The Next Morning

The next day had finally arrived, two figures sat in a grassy meadow just outside of the village. Off to the side of the figures, a large boulder sat in the clearing. The first one was Luffy, a small seven-year-old with black hair and a small scar under his left eye. He wore a pair of cargo shorts and a white shirt with a blue anchor on the front. The second figure was the one armed pirate that saved his life the previous day.

"Luffy, listen up. The crew and I will be leaving the village in about a week, so I'm going to teach you a couple things and set you up with a couple exercises to help you develop your skills for the future. I'm not going to focus on your devil fruit, I want you to work on that on your own time. I'm going to show you two techniques that you can master if you work hard at them."

The pirate knew that it wasn't really responsible to teach him what he was about to. He didn't care though, he felt that he owed the kid one and what better payment method then to teach the self-proclaimed 'better future pirate' how to start earning his haki. "What I'm about to show you, you have to promise me that you don't tell anyone about except for your future crew when you feel that they are ready to learn how to use it."

The boy had a confused look on his face with one eyebrow raised up, "How come Shanks?"

"Because," The man started to explain, "The abilities that I'm going to show you are really powerful and if anyone found out that you can use them, you would be targeted by people who are just as strong as me, if not stronger. They would destroy everything that you love, your friends, your village, everything." Maybe it was a slight exaggeration, but the kid didn't need to know that.

Luffy definitely didn't expect that, "Okay, I won't tell anyone then!"

"Are you sure? Little kids don't know how to keep secrets." He said as he stuck his tongue out, knowing that would get a response out of Luffy.

"Hey, I'm not a little kid! I can keep a secret just fine." He crossed his arms and looked away. "Jerk!" He mumbled to himself, although the red-head still heard him, gaining a chuckle out of him.

After he stopped laughing, Shanks slowly grew more serious before finally getting back to business, "What I'm about to show you is called haki, there are three different forms of it, however I'm only going to show you two of them." Shanks started to explain to the aspiring pirate, "I won't be showing you the third one because it's very rare and only a select few can learn it. If you are capable of learning it, then it will show it's self when you are ready."

Shanks stood up and told Luffy to do so as well, "Here is the first one." Luffy watched in awe as Shanks arm was covered in what looked like a black substance, "This is called the color of arms or otherwise known as armament haki. Normally your skin wont turn black like this without a lot of training, normally it would be an invisible coating around my arm. This is called hardening." The pirate let the technique slowly fade away.

"What does it do?" Luffy asked.

"Good question, watch this." Shanks walked over to the boulder and casually punched it. Luffy was left underwhelmed when nothing happened, he was about to ask what the point was when he was cut off by shanks cutting him off.

"Now watch what happens when I use the color of arms, you won't see it covering my arm this time." Shanks pulled his arm back and struck the boulder again with the same amount of force. Luffy's jaw dropped and his eyes bugged out when a huge crack appeared around his fist, almost looking like a spider web.

"Holy crap, that was awesome! So, it makes your attacks stronger?" The boy asked with stars in his eyes.

"Yes, it can also be used to shield you or even be applied to weapons." He demonstrated by pulling his sword and nicking his shoulder only for nothing to happen and then coat his sword in haki and cutting the boulder in half like it was nothing. Shanks couldn't help laughing at the sight of the kid, he looked like he just hit the jackpot.

"That's soo cool! I want to learn how to do that."

"You will at some point." Shanks grabbed a stick laying on the ground and walked back over to Luffy before handing it to him. "Okay Luffy, here is the other technique you will start training in. It's called the color of observation or observation haki. Try hitting me with the stick. He said as he sat down, his back facing towards Luffy.

Luffy was confused with the orders, but decided to follow them anyways. He trusted that Shanks knew what he was doing. He proceeded to swing the stick at him multiple times and was completely in awe as not only did Shanks flawlessly dodge every strike at the last second, but also called out exactly where the strikes would come from at the same time!

"H-how did you do that!?" The boy asked, not knowing how to comprehend what he just saw.

"It's the power of observation," The pirate said as though it was the simplest thing in the universe. "Every living thing emits a 'voice' or an 'aura' if you will. Basically, by training in this skill, overtime you will be able to sense that 'voice' or 'aura' of others around and feel where they are as if you were seeing them without 'sight'. People that have trained their observation haki well enough can even slightly see into the future, read people's emotions or sense how strong another person is." The red head tried to explain in a way that he thought Luffy would understand.

"Wow really! The ability to see into the future, that's so cool!" The boy was hopping in place, excitement clear on his face. "Let's get started then, so what do I have to do?"

"Don't get too excited, it will take you a couple of years to learn these skills and even longer to master them." The boy frowned at that, "One of my old teachers explained it to me like this, 'The act of not doubting yourself is the key to building your haki.' You need to have confidence in your decisions and in yourself if you want to earn it. It also takes a lot of training to awaken your haki for the first time. We are going to start on some exercises to build up your strength, speed and endurance over this week and then next week ill start teaching you exercises that you can do to start unlocking your haki. Do you have any questions before we get started?"

The boy thought for a second before one popped up in his head, "How come we are working on this and not my devil fruit at all? Isn't that a waste of my fruit then?" He was super excited to learn how to use these other abilities, but it would be a waste to not learn how to use his devil fruit especially since the ocean now rejects him because of it.

"Your right. And you should learn how to use your fruit because it will make you more powerful. I'm not helping you with your fruit because you need to do that yourself, what I'm teaching you will be a lot harder to learn. If you learn haki, you will be a lot stronger than anyone in the east blue and stronger than most people in the first half of the grand line. Plus, you should never just rely on your fruit, if you do that makes you weak to other people."

"Wow!" Stronger than everyone in east blue and the first half of the grand line! "Alright, I'm going to learn haki and how to use my devil fruit! Then ill show you how great of a pirate I am." The kid flexed his right arm with his left holding it, causing Shanks to laugh at his determination.

"Alright, we are going to spar," The man said as he moved closer to Luffy, "Try and dodge as many attacks as you can."

Luffy's training had finally begun.

Two weeks later

The two weeks that Shanks spent helping Luffy had finally ended, it was time for the crew and Luffy to split ways. Who knew how long it would be until they saw each other again.

Luffy and the people of the village stood on the docks that surrounded the ship. Everyone member of the pirate crew was in the process of packing up for their long voyage back to the grand line. Everyone that is, except for Captain Shanks, who was still on the dock with the villagers. He was standing between Makino and Luffy chatting with them.

"Do you really have to leave." The boy asked with a big frown on his face. The two had grown even closer in the two weeks that they spent training. While Luffy hadn't gotten very far with his haki training, he did notice that he was starting to get quicker and stronger under Shanks' tutelage. Luffy had also started experimenting with his gum gum fruit, he had a couple ideas that he could use for attacks and was currently trying to figure his rubber body out.

"Yeah, we've been here for a long time and it's finally time that we go back." The captain answered back, "Will you miss us?"

"Yeah," Tears threatened to fall, but somehow Luffy managed to hold them back, "I'm going to miss you guys, but I'm not going to ask you guys to take me with you this time. I'm going to stay here and get stronger then I'll become a pirate on my own."

"Bleh," Shanks stuck his tongue out at the boy, "I wasn't going to take you anyways. Like you can become a pirate." He said in a silly tone.

Luffy frowned and yelled out, causing the whole crew to stop what they were doing and look at him. "I will! I'm going to get stronger and gather a crew that beats yours and when I do, i'll find the world's greatest treasure. No matter what, I'm going to be the Pirate King!" The crew smiled at the boy's determination as Shanks looked down, his precious straw hat shadowing his face.

"Eh, you're going to beat us? Then," Shanks took the hat off his head and placed it on Luffy's head. The hat shadowed his face as he listened to his hero speak, "I'm leaving this hat in your care, its very important to me. Take good care of it for me."

Luffy couldn't hold it anymore, he started crying as Shanks took his hand off of his head and turned around. As Shanks started walking to his ship, his cloak trailing the wind behind him. He said one last thing before boarding his ship, "Someday return that hat back to me, when you're a great pirate."

"Shanks, i'm going to get even stronger than you! Next time we meet, I'll save your life instead." Luffy yelled as the pirate ship left the dock.

"Hah!" Shanks whispered to himself as his ship pulled away from the docks, "I'll hold you to that Luffy."

The pirate crew that significantly impacted Luffy's life set off for the final time. The boy held the precious hat to his chest with his right arm as he waved to the cheering pirates out on the sea.

'Just wait Shanks, when we meet again, I will be giving your hat back.' With his mind made up, Luffy left the big crowd and started heading to the clearing that Shanks taught him in.

"Where are you going Luffy?" The green haired woman asked. She was sad to see Shanks leave, they had grown close over the past year, but she could only imagine how Luffy felt. She knew that he only had her and his grandpa who hasn't even been back home in longer than a year.

"I'm going to train, Makino-chan. I need to get stronger so I can keep my promise to Shanks. I'll be back at the bar later." The boy left, his face showing just how much determination he was feeling in order to keep the promise.

Shanks

Shanks and Ben continued to stare back at the small village that served as their base for the past year.

"He's going to go far in life." Shanks finally broke the silence.

"Yes, if he can learn how to use everything that we taught him, I have no doubt that he will make waves in this vast world of ours." Ben anticipated.

'Use this time to grow Luffy. Find your own way and get strong, I gave you everything I could. Now it's your turn to choose what to do with it."

When the village finally left their sight, the Captain and first mate turned their heads to the future. "Men, set sail to the New World!"

"Aye, aye Cap'n!"

Ten years later

It's finally time! After ten years of training, Luffy was finally ready to embark on his journey to becoming the Pirate King. Luffy gave Makino a hug before hopping onto the small boat he prepared to take him on his journey.

The little boy had grown well over the past ten year, he now stood a little taller than Makino. He was skinny but still clearly muscular from his grueling training over the years. The boy, no he was a young man now, wore a red vest with blue shorts and the ever-present straw hat that sat upon his head. Makino was sad to see him finally leave on his journey, she thought of him as if he was her own son due to all the time that they had spent together. She was going to miss him.

"Everyone, I'm taking off now. Take care." He said before looking out towards sea. The lazy waves greeted his eyes and he smiled in anticipation.

"Sabo, watch me. I'm off to sea. I'm going to be a pirate." He whispered to himself, his eyes facing towards the sky with one hand on the brim of his straw hat. After a moment of silence, he suddenly lifted both hands into the sky, his fingers clutched into tight fists, "Ace, Shanks. Here I come, don't wait up for me." He shouted to the heavens above, as if his voice would care throughout the world and somehow reach them. With that said, Straw hat Luffy took his first step towards his dream. To be the King of Pirates!

As he set out on his journey, the villagers waved out to him and he waved back. Suddenly, he had to turn around when the same sea king that tried to attack him and instead ate Shanks left arm ten years ago shot out of the water, anticipating its next meal.

"So, your back huh?" He pushed the straw hat down so it shadowed him eyes, "Here's payback for what you did to Shanks." The pirate threw his arm back behind him where it seemed to stretch briefly before coming to a stop. With a little bit of concentration, Luffy covered his fist in the color of arms, applying an invisible coating to his fist to greatly increase the power of his punch.

"Take this! Gomu gomu no… pistol!" The fist hurtled back at intense speed, whistling past Luffy and smashing the sea king in the face. The punch was so intense that the beast shot through the surface of the water, creating a trench briefly as it skipped across the surface of the ocean until the waves came and filled the displaced water. When the sea settled down, any traces of the sea king were completely gone.

"Shishishi. Serves you right!" The pirate snickered to himself, "Onward, to adventure!"

After a couple hours of sailing, Luffy decided to sit back and enjoy the ocean surrounding him, the waves rolled by lazily as the occasional seagull flew by. It was a nice, sunny day with a slight breeze and Luffy was all too happy to relax and soak up the sun for a little bit.

"Alright, I better start recruiting crew members before I go to the grand line. I think I want about 10 members." He lazily spoke to himself, as if to get an idea of his master plan. "First, I should get a navigator since I have no idea what I'm doing and then maybe a musician next so we can sing. Huh, after tha…" Luffy was cut off when suddenly his raft trembled, he quickly shot up to see what was happening and found himself being sucked in by a whirlpool.

"Shishishi, this should be fun." He gave a genuine smile as he thought about how he should get out of the situation. He looked around to see if there were any near by ships, after finding none he looked down at the barrel containing his food and shrugged to himself, 'Hopefully this will work.' He thought as he proceeded to stuff himself into the barrel and miraculously fell asleep immediately without a worry in the world.

About an hour later

Luffy slowly started waking up to the sounds of voices, he looked around momentarily and noticed it was pitch black. 'Where am I?' He thought, before remembering that he was in his barrel after getting trapped in the whirlpool.

'I need to stretch, time to get out of the barrel.' Luffy shot up with a yawn and a stretch, not even noticing that one of the voices out side had just said that they were going to smash the barrel open.

15 minutes earlier

"Everyone get ready, we are going to show these guys the wraith of the Alvida pirates!" A rather big boned lady with a huge mace shouted out to her crew as they all cheered. Said crew found a cruise ship and decided to raid it for their valuables. Everyone except for a small dorky, pink haired brat was preparing for the fight that was about to ensue. The lady noticed and promptly called the brat over, "Coby, get over here now!"

Said kid winced when he was called over, but still trudged up to the large woman, "Yes Alvida-sama!?" Alvida was… obese, easily so. She wore a fancy white cowgirl hat with a dark blue captain's coat adorned with gold trim. Under her coat, she wore a pink, plaid shirt that hugged her rolls. Her outfit was finished off with excessive amounts of flashy jewelry on her hands, a sash wrapped around her waist with a pistol tucked under and a massive mace adorned with spikes gripped in her right hand.

Alvida fully turned and faced her subordinate before glaring at him. Causing the kid to break into a sweat. "Why don't I see you getting prepared Coby? Your getting on that ship too." She narrowed her eyes at the brat, waiting for a response.

Coby was a wimpy, short kid with baby fat adorning his face, circular glasses sat on his face and he wore a simple white button up v-neck with black pants. He had pink hair that parted in the middle and was currently sporting a scared frown with sweat forming on his brow.

"I-I was j-just cleaning the ship Alvida-sama." The kid managed to stutter out, although just barely.

The captain seemed to hum in thought, "Were you now Coby? I don't think that's what I saw myself." She pulled her mace up and leaned it over her shoulder, giving a pointed look to the pink haired brat. "I suppose I can let you off with cleaning the entire ship from top to bottom if you do your part in the raid and actually make yourself useful. Otherwise, I think we can see just how intimate you can be with this mace here."

"Y-yes mam Alvida-sama." Coby squeaked out as he saluted, then moved away from the scary woman to mentally prepare himself.

"Alright boys, who is the most beautiful woman in the entire seas?"

It was finally time, with well-placed hooks the crew connected the pirate ship and the cruise ship together. With a cry of, "Alvida-sama is!" The entire crew boarded the ship and rushed to secure the crew and the civilians.

Coby trailed right behind as he was thrown across by Alvida. The big lady soon followed when one of the pirates came to tell her the crew was secured.

No one noticed when a girl wearing a tight blue shirt and a black bandana used one of the ropes securing the two ships together to slide down into the pirate ship and scurry off to find the nearest door or when Coby walked down into the cruise ship's lower levels.

Coby continued down into the ship until he found himself in the kitchen, where he promptly decided to stay. "Maybe I can hide down here for a little while." The kid took a look around and noticed a peculiar barrel sitting off to the corner of the room, it was a lot bigger than the rest of the barrels in the kitchen which was rather odd. He walked over to take a look at it right as three of the crew members walked into the room.

"Oi, what are you doing down here brat? Are you trying to hide from Alvida-sama again?" One of the pirates asked, intimidating the brat when he pulled his sword out from it's resting spot at his hip.

"N-no I was gathering supplies for our ship and then I found this really big barrel." The kid responded back, quickly finding a way to get attention off him.

One of the goons walked over and experimentally lifted it up, only to find out that it weighed much more than he expected, "Let's crack this bad boy open. I bet there's a lot of booze in here and I'm feelin pretty thirsty! Right, scallywags?" The men all smirked as the one by the barrel shimmied it over to the other two.

"You can't!" Coby freaked out, "What if Alvida-sama finds out?" He really, really didn't want to take any of Alvida's wraith.

"Well then, it's a good thing that no one here is a snitch. Am I right boys!?" The other two men agreed whole heartedly, "Am I right?" The man turned back to Coby and gave him a smirk that easily promised a whole lot of pain to the brat if their captain caught wind of this.

"R-right." The pink-haired brat stuttered out.

"Time to drink!" The man started to swing his fist down onto the top of the barrel, trying to smash it open (idiot). Suddenly, as his fist was just about to reach its desired target, the lid was smashed outwards as a man yawned and threw his arms out to stretch his muscles. Everyone watched in shock as the pirate was dropped like a sack of potatoes by the stretching fists of a young adult wearing a red vest, blue shorts and a simple straw hat placed on top of his head.

"Ahh, that was a great nap!" The man noticed the two pirates in front of him and the one knocked out on the ground. "Hey, who the hell are you?" he asked the pirates.

"WHO THE HELL ARE YOU!" The men shouted back as they stepped forward.

Luffy responded back as if this kind of thing was a normal everyday occurrence, "I'm Monkey D. Luffy. Why is that guy sleeping on the floor? He's going to get a cold." Luffy asked with genuine confusion.

Their eye's bugged out, "YOU PUT HIM THERE!" The pirates continued yelling as they pulled their swords out and moved them towards Luffy's throat.

Once again, Luffy ignored them and stepped out of the barrel, he shook some dust from his vest as he faced Coby, "Hey, you. Where's the food at, I'm hungry." Luffy's stomach growled loudly in response to his question.

"QUIT IGNORING US!" The pirates swung their swords at Luffy, prepared to kill the stupid bastard. Coby was just about to cover his eyes when he noticed that Luffy was smirking. He was confused why anyone would smile at the face of their death and so he decided to watch whatever happened next.

Everyone was shocked when Luffy casually ducked between the two blades with such grace, Coby even noticed that his feet stayed in the same spot through the entire motion. The pirates had put so much strength into the attack that when both blades missed their mark, the men were left over extended. Luffy reached his hands out and grabbed each blade as they flew past him and easily snapped them, as if they were sticks.

Both men panicked for a moment and fell backwards, quickly trying to put distance between them and the man wearing a straw hat. When their brains started working again, they freaked out and dashed out of the kitchen, praying that the man wouldn't give chase.

Meanwhile, Luffy just turned back to coby, his pinky up his nose, as he once again asked Coby to bring him to the food. The kid just nodded, not even attempting to anger the man who defeated three of the Alvida pirates without even trying. "F-follow me."

The two soon entered a storage room and Coby closed the door behind them. Luffy jumped straight in and immediately started eating any food that he could get his hands on. Coby watched in pure awe, he had seen the eating manners of pirates. Pirates didn't eat anything like what he was seeing. The cabin boy was feeling disgusted just by watching.

Coby was gathering his thoughts, he had a lot of questions he wanted to ask. He was just about to open his mouth, but Luffy beat him to it, "So, are we on a pirate ship?" Luffy asked the pink-haired kid.

"N-no we aren't, we're on a cruise ship that's being attacked by the Alvida pirates." Coby said as Luffy continued eating.

Luffy finally asked another question after he swallowed the apple he was eating, "Can you take me to a boat? There's got to be a small one on the shi…" He was cut off with a protest from Coby, "Are you crazy!? We can't, there are pirates up there. We wouldn't stand a chance! We need to stay down here where they won't find… Ow! Why did you hit me?" The kid whined

"Shishishi, cause I felt like it! You're a coward ain't ya?" Coby felt a pang to his heart from the insult as Luffy looked down, his hat shadowing his eyes. He cracked his knuckles as he continued, "It doesn't matter if their pirates, cause I'm a pirate too. If they get in my way, I'll just kick their asses!"

Coby fell back in horror, "Y-y-you're a pirate?" He squeaked out.

"Yup!" Luffy grinned at the horrified look on the kids face, "I just started my journey, but I got sucked into a whirlpool and lost my boat. It doesn't matter though, I'm going to be King of the pirates!" He said with such resolve that it shook Coby to the core.

"Y-you have to be crazy! Pirate king is the title given to the man who acquires everything. Wealth, fame, power, everything. That means going into the grand line and getting the one piece! No way, just no way! T-that means standing at the top of this great pirate era!" Luffy was just nodding through the whole explanation, as if it was the simplest thing in the universe, "There's just no way. You can't, you'll die!" The kid finished his rant.

Luffy stared at him with an intensity that made Coby want to hide and curl up into a ball, "It doesn't matter if I die along the way. I'm going to do it because I want to! I would rather die trying to make me dream a reality then stay back home and do nothing with my life. I would never forgive myself!" Luffy stood up and dusted his pants off, "I'm full. I'm gonna go find a boat."

Luffy reached the door and started to turn the door knob when Coby finally called out, "Wait, d-do you think I can do it? Do you think I can get away from these pirates and accomplish my dreams?" The intensity that Coby spoke with put a smile on Luffy's face, who knew that the coward could speak so passionately.

"Shishishi, how should I know. If you don't fight for your own dreams, then who will?" He said back.

"Your right! I'm going to become a great marine and catch bad guys like Alvida-sa… no Alvida." That declaration surprised Luffy but he smiled at the lofty goal, "Go for it, Coby! You can do it!"

Luffy could feel the people that had been listening in on the conversation ever since he first told Coby his dream and his sixth sense warned him about what was about to happen.

'3… 2… 1…' Luffy thought to himself.

BANG! The ceiling above Coby smashed inwards, a mace making itself visible before the owner herself made an appearance through the hole. "Your going to catch who, COBY!?" Alvida yelled as she landed right in front of the cowering kid, her mace raised threatening over her shoulder.

Behind Luffy, swords skewered through the wooden door in an attempt to pierce him. Four of the five completely missed their mark while the finally one was on a collision course with Luffy's head. Luffy tilted his head slightly to the left, completely dodging the sharp blade by a fraction of an inch.

Alvida looked over and studied the straw hat, "You don't look like pirate hunter Zoro to me. Must be another weak bounty hunter." The lady smirked before gazing at the pink-haired brat, "Coby, who is the most beautiful…"

"Hey Coby, why is there a fat whale on the ship?" Luffy flicked a booger from his pinky.

Everyone within ear shot lost control of their jaws as eyes bugged out and jaws smashed the floor. The occupants of the storage room could swear that they saw steam coming from Alvida's ears.

"Why you!? I'm going to crush you, you damned brat." She hefted her mace up and prepared to smash Coby and Luffy into smithereens. Coby was shivering in fear and Luffy… Luffy was laughing his ass off…

In the blink of an eye, before Alvida could even start swinging the mace down towards the two brats, Luffy grabbed Coby by the shirt and jumped up. He skillfully hopped onto the mace and used it as a step to leap up through the hole, onto the deck of the cruise ship.

The two pirates who Luffy had met earlier were the first to react to the new faces on the deck, both were shaking in their boots but still managed to pull new swords from their belts and rush forward to decapitate Luffy and the brat. Luffy rolled his eyes and stepped forward to meet both men head on. The first one to reach him tried to stab him through the chest, but Luffy skillfully pivoted on one leg and completely dodged the stab attempt. The man's head was introduced to Luffy's elbow right after as he carried the pivot into a smooth full circle spin and smashed his elbow into the pirate. The man fell like a puppet with its strings cut and didn't get back up.

The second man followed up and tried to gut Luffy with a ruthless slash. He simply stepped into the mans guard and caught the sword by the guard and kicked the assailant in the chest, sending him flying off the deck of the ship and into the ocean below. A third pirate tried to take advantage of Luffy's turned back and went in for the kill. He wasn't expecting to not only fail in his attempt, but to be back handed into the group of pirates behind him.

Luffy turned back to make sure that Coby was alright. As he caught sight of the brat and saw that he was safe, he caught two different things; Alvida had just made it back onto the deck and he could sense someone watching him intently. He looked over to the other ship, where he saw a girl in a blue shirt and a black bandana with a little bit of orange hair peaking out staring at him. They made eye contact and he smiled at her. She instantly looked away, embarrassed that she had been caught and continued lowering the boat that she was stealing.

Luffy made a mental note to keep an eye on her presence in the case that he needed a quick getaway.

"I'm getting sick and tired of you stupid brats," His attention was pulled away by Alvida as she waddled towards him. She was getting a couple practice swings in before she showed this brat who was boss. "I overheard you talking to Coby and I have to say, you're a fool! Hahahaha! You as the pirate king? Don't make me laugh, you won't be able to beat me. I'm going to enjoy killing you brat! After I'm done with you, I think I'll have some fun crushing Coby too." All of her men cheered, there was no way this wannabe pirate could stand up to Alvida-sama's might.

Alvida pulled the mace up over her head and then swung it down towards Luffy, ready to finish him off, "Luffy! NO!" Coby shouted at the top of his lungs as the men continued to cheer.

It was safe to say that no one expected to see what happened next.

Luffy stood in place, his hat shadowing his eyes as he clenched his fist. He breathed out as his fist was covered in a light application of haki. Suddenly, his fist rocketed up in an instant, meeting the mace half way. The mace shattered like glass immediately on contact.

Everyone's jaws dropped as they watched the spectacle. Slowly, Luffy's head lifted up and his hat no longer shadowed his facial features. All hearts froze and everyone felt a chill pass through them at the hardened look in the man's eyes. All of the pirates and the aspiring marine understood right then and there, this straw hat was way beyond them. A few of the pirates dropped to their knees, all faith in winning this battle lost.

"I'm not going to let you trash talk my dream, and I'm sure as hell not going to let you hurt my new friend!" Luffy pulled his arm back and smashed Alvida right in the face, he didn't use haki with this punch, that didn't matter though because the force of the punch caused the fat in her face to billow outwards like waves. Alvida rocketed off the ship and was carried out over the sea. When she finally landed, she cannon-balled right on top of her subordinate that was kicked off the deck earlier by the straw hat.

Luffy was just about to call out for the rest of the quivering Alvida pirates to prepare him and Coby a ship when cannon balls landed right next to the two ships. 'Shit the navy's here, there's no time to get a boat ready. They want to sink both ships to get rid of the pirates.'

Coby started freaking out, "We need to get out of here! I can't be seen with these pirates or I'll never be accepted into the navy!" Luffy ignored him as he tried to think of a quick way out. Suddenly a light bulb went off in his head as he thought about the girl with the orange hair. He quickly focused with his observation haki and easily caught on to her signature. She was about to leave the ships behind.

"Come on!" Luffy quickly grabbed onto Coby and sprinted across both ships where he found the girl down below, just pushing away from the ships. "Hold on tight Coby!"

"W-wait!" Luffy jumped off the ship and they landed in the little boat, practically giving the girl a heart attack and knocking her out of the boat. "Aaahhhhh! What the hell!?" She screamed as Luffy reached out and grabbed her by the hand and pulled her back into the boat.

"No time," Luffy responded, shocking Coby as he had only seen him serious when he was angry, "The marines are going to sink all of the ships here in the name of 'Absolute justice'. We really need to get out of here or their going to target us too." Luffy said with some clear distaste.

And sure enough, a cannon ball from one of the ships landed right next to them. Coby and the girl started freaking out, both of them muttering something like 'we're screwed.'

Another cannon was shot at them, this time it was clearly going to hit them dead on. The two cowards started screaming and hugged each other. "We're gonna die," they shouted together, "now I'll never get to follow my dream! / now I'll never get the money for my village!" They continued in unison.

Both of them continued to watch as their death flew right at them, but neither of them expected for the third occupant of the ship to catch the cannon ball with one hand like it was the easiest thing in the universe. Both of their jaws dropped and their eyes bugged out, "What the hell!?" They looked at each other, then back at the straw hat, "We're saved!"

"W-what are you doing?" Coby asked as he watched Luffy pull him arm back and prepared to throw the cannon ball like a baseball.

"What does it look like? I'm return it back to it's owners." Luffy pitched the ball back and it shot back at the ship with almost triple the amount of force that the cannon shot it with. The cannon screeched all the way back and smashed into the ship with a massive explosion. The ball must have hit a gun powder supply because the explosion was massive enough that the wind generated was enough to push the small boat a long way and almost capsized it.

"You idiot!" The girl yelled.

"WOOHOO!" Luffy laughed as the small boat shot off with a massive speed boost, he used one hand to hold his hat in place and his other arm stretched out to grab the girl who was almost left behind. She was standing when the explosion happened and was practically thrown out of the boat from the force of it.

Coby was gripping onto the boat hard enough that he was sure his hands were bleeding. He was also staring at Luffy's stretched out arm in terror. Arms were not supposed to do that!

The girl was freaking out for a couple different reasons. First, she was scared the boat would capsize with all her valuables. Second, she was holding on tightly to a person she didn't even know that was keeping her from flying out of the small boat. And finally, said person's arm was stretched out and wrapped around her waist a couple times. 'I'm pretty damn sure that that isn't supposed to happen!'.

Oh yeah! Not to mention, who was this guy!? Not only did he manage to catch a freaking cannon ball with one hand, but he even threw it back at a marine ship with way more force than a cannon ever could and he destroyed the entire ship with one throw! How freaking powerful was this guy?

After a little while, the boats momentum managed to slow down to a more manageable speed and Luffy let the girl down into the boat when he was sure that she would be safe.

Now that everything had calmed down, Luffy took a look at the girl. He didn't really get to look at her before and the only feature he could remember was the strands of orange hair sticking out of her bandana. She now had her bandana off, revealing short orange hair. She had hazel eyes and fair colored skin. She was currently sporting a tight blue V-neck shirt that revealed her assets and loose-fitting black pants with a red sash tied around the waist.

"What the hell was that!?" The two shouted at the straw hat.

"What, I don't understand?" he responded back, really confused with the question.

"What do you mean by 'I don't understand'?" The girl asked in exasperation, "You just caught a fucking cannon ball like it was nothing and then threw it with enough force to destroy a ship and then your arm stretched out and caught me. Thanks for that by the way."

"Shishishi, that's a lot of questions." He said back with his pinky up his nose.

"ANSWER THEM!" The girl shouted back at him.

"Shishishi, fine fine. I did a lot of training growing up as a kid. And the reason why my body can stretch is because I ate one of the devil fruits. The fruit I ate was the gum gum fruit," Luffy grabbed his cheek and stretched it a good two feet to show them, "See I'm a rubber man." He snapped his cheek back into place.

"So, the devil fruits do actually exist, I thought they were just a myth." The girl had a contemplative look on her face, "Wait, that doesn't explain how you were able to catch a cannon ball. What kind of training were you doing as a kid that would let you do that?"

"Well when I was really young, my grandpa used to throw me in the woods for a week or two at a time for survival training or there was that one time where he threw me down a bottomless pit. I think it took me like five days to climb back up. Oh yeah and I almost forgot about the time where he tied me to enough balloons that I flew up into the sky and I was up there for three hours before a bird came by and popped all of them. I was really lucky that I landed in the ocean. Oh, but I didn't know how to swim, good thing grandpa saved me." Coby and the girl just listened in growing horror as each story got worse and worse. You couldn't make this shit up. 'No wonder this kid is so strong, I'm surprised he's not dead yet!" The girl thought to herself as she turned to look at their heading and to check the weather.

"Oh, I forgot to ask." Luffy said, causing the girl to look back at him, "What's your name? My name is Luffy and this coward is Coby." Coby visibly deflated after being introduced as a coward by the man that saved his life.

The girl giggled into her hand, "My names Nami, I'm a thief who steals from pirates and I'm the best damn navigator you'll find at sea." Nami puffed her chest in pride at the self-proclaimed title. She felt fine telling these guys that she was a pirate thief, it wasn't like these guys were pirates or anything.

In fact, he seemed pretty strong, maybe she could get him to help her. She would definitely get her one million beli quicker. "You know, maybe you should help me out for a little while, we could make a killing working together!"

"Sorry, can't do that." He didn't sound sorry in the slightest bit.

"Come on, please." She latched on to his arm, making sure it was in the middle of her chest. There was no way she couldn't get him with her feminine appeal, "I could really use someone strong like you." 'Hook, line and sinker.' She thought to herself.

"Nah, I'm good." No reaction at all, it looked like he was ignoring her.

"Why not?" She let go of his arm and sat back down in the boat, partially upset that he didn't take her offer. 'Is he gay?'

"Because," He gave her a big grin, "I'm going to be the pirate king!" Coby facepalmed, only this guy would be stupid enough to tell someone that hates pirates that he is one.

And just like that, Nami was on edge, "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't throw you off this boat right now."

"Because you won't." Luffy said, his eyes shadowed by his straw hat.

"Are you trying to intimidate me?" Her eyes narrowed, she wasn't going to lie and say that he wasn't intimidating right now. "Cause it won't work."

"No, I'm saying that because I can feel your emotions, we both know that you aren't even going to try and throw me over. I know you hate pirates, but you can't cut us all from the same cloth." Luffy was staring intently at her as he spoke, "Not all pirates are bad people."

"What would you know!?" Nami yelled at the straw hat, "Have you ever been hurt by one? Has a pirate ever taken everything you have away from you? Huh?" Nami grabbed Luffy by the vest and pulled him to his feet as she continued yelling at him.

She wasn't expecting to see a single tear fall down Luffy's cheek and it stopped her in her tracks. "I understand exactly how you feel," Luffy said in a solemn voice, "I hate people like them. They have to bully and beat down on others to make themselves feel like their powerful. That kind of scum hurt their own crew mates. They are the worst kind of people." Luffy sighed, he didn't like bringing up his past, but he thought it would help him with making his argument against this girl. "When I was seven years old, a couple members of a pirate group tortured me for a couple hours to get some information that I had and a couple month down the road, their actions played a part in getting my brother killed." Luffy's fist tightened up so hard that he drew a small line of blood and it slowly seeped down his hand onto the boat. He put his hand in the ocean to clean the blood off his hand while ignoring the instant weakness he felt at touching the ocean to the best of his abilities.

Nami and Coby didn't expect that answer. Nami was upset with herself, she didn't expect that he would have a story so similar to her own. She bit her lip to keep the tears from coming, "I-I'm sorry for making you bring that up." She walked up and wrapped him in a hug.

Luffy returned the hug and rubbed her back slightly the way that Makino would when he was upset.

"Don't worry about it. Just keep in mind that not all pirates are evil. That crew wasn't my first pirate crew I ever met. The first crew I met stayed in my home village for a year. I hung out with them every single day that they were in the village. They even gave me my devil fruit." That shocked Nami, she didn't believe that they existed until today, but she had heard rumors that they would sell for hundreds of millions in beli. "The captain even saved my life and lost something important because of it." Nami could hear a bit of sadness and guilt in that last part and she was shocked that a pirate could be so selfless.

Luffy took one of his arms off of her back and grabbed his treasured hat from his head, "When he left the village for the last time, we made a deal. I would hold on to this hat for him and someday when I become a greater pirate than he is, I'll give it back to him. This hat is my treasure and someday when I'm the pirate king, I'll return it to him." He spoke as he admired the hat in his hand before returning it back to his head.

As Nami broke the hug, the three of them noticed that it was starting to get later in the day. She walked over to the bag and pulled out some provisions. She handed some dried meat, an orange and a chunk of a bread loaf to Luffy and Coby each before grabbing one for herself. "I don't have a whole lot of food for all of us, we probably won't arrive to shells town until sometime tomorrow morning."

"Thank you for the food!" They both said back to nami. Nami sat down next to Luffy and they all started eating.

"Hey wait," Coby asked, "Isn't Shell town where they are keeping the evil pirate hunter Roronoa Zoro?"

"Yeah I think so." Nami responded back.

"Hey, that walking whale back there said something about this Zoro guy." Luffy earned a giggle from Nami, "He must be pretty weak to get captured."

Coby was shivering, he didn't like the idea of even being on the same island as that monster. "Are you crazy! Pirate hunter Zoro is known all over the east blue as a demon, no one that has faced him has ever stood a chance!"

"Shishishi, it's decided then," Nami and Coby did not like the large grin that was spreading across his face, "If he's a good guy than I'm going to recruit him!"

"Are you an idiot! Everyone knows that he hunts pirates, he's probably going to kill you!" Nami smashed him over the head with her fist.

Coby sighed, "Were you even listening to a word I just said?"

"Nope, sorry coward. I decided that he's joining my crew and that's that." Luffy gave them his big grin as Coby's head dropped in depression.

"Well I'm going to bed guys, good night." Luffy promptly laid down in the boat and started snoring immediately. He already had a small bit of drool dripping from his mouth and a snot bubble was slowly forming.

"What the hell!?" The other occupants of the boat face planted at the absurdness of him falling into that deep of sleep so immediately.

"What the hell is this guy?" Nami asked the pink-haired kid.

"I have no idea, I just met him today. I almost feel bad for who ever ends up with him as their captain." He responded back.

"Wait, you're not a part of his crew?" Nami questioned, she figured that Luffy was the captain and that the kid was his first crew member.

"No, I'm not. I owe him my life though. Two years ago, I ended up as a crew member of Alvida's pirate crew and I've always been too afraid to escape." The boy admitted to the orange haired thief, "Luffy convinced me that if I didn't escape and fight for my own dream, then who would. He gave me the courage I needed to stand up to Alvida. I told him that my dream was to be a great marine and to lock away bad guys. After I stood up for myself, he told me that he would do what ever he could to help me get into the marines."

A pirate helping an aspiring marine, who would have guessed. Nami was feeling tired, her entire life she had always believed that all pirates were terrible people. But, all of a suddenly Luffy comes into her life and shakes that belief to the core. She hated pirates, but Luffy was already starting to melt that hatred just a little bit.

"I-I think we should get some sleep, it's been a long day." She told the boy and he readily agreed.

Coby settled down in the corner of the boat that he had been sitting in. It was relatively easy for him to fall asleep between the events of today as well as the fact that he was use to sleeping on the floor of Alvida's ship.

Nami settled down in between Luffy and Coby, she was turned towards the straw hat. Everything that he had told her today was constantly running through her head in what felt like a mile a second. His story was somewhat similar to hers, but it seemed like the difference between them was that he was able to move on, while her past seemed to keep her chained. She closed her eyes, but her mind wouldn't shut down like she hoped it would.

Later in the night

It had been at least three or four hours since the guys had fallen asleep. Nami was still up, tossing and turning. No matter what she did, she just couldn't seem to fall asleep. Currently she was laying on her back, looking up at the brilliant stars in the sky when something shifting to her left caught her attention. Luffy shifted in his sleep, he rolled over onto his right side. One hand instinctually scratched a spot on his neck as his other hand stretched out, due to cramping from laying in one spot for too long and landed right on top of Nami's hand.

She stiffened as Luffy unconsciously grabbed onto the appendage and seemed to settle back down as he got comfortable again. She noticed how warm his hand was and softly blushed as he held on to her. She wasn't sure why, but she was slightly disappointed when a moment later his grip loosened and his arm dropped to the wood below.

The slight impact from his hand hitting the floor board shook him awake and he shot up almost as if he was expecting to be attacked. "What? What happened?" He took a moment to rub his tiredness away from his eyes. After a moment he looked around him and found a fully awake Nami next to him.

"I-is something happening?" Nami giggled at his attempt to speak, he clearly wasn't a morning person.

"No nothings happening." She spoke quietly, so as not to wake up Coby. "Hey, Luffy. I have a question for you."

"Huh? What's up?" He yawned out the words.

"How were you able to fall asleep so easily after I threatened to throw you out of the boat? If I had gone through with it, you would be dead." The guy couldn't have been stupid enough to fall asleep next to a potential enemy, that was just asking for trouble.

"That's easy," He reasoned back, clearly more alert now. "I knew you wouldn't do it. I can sense your emotions, you were threatening me, but your thoughts didn't match up with your words."

She didn't expect that answer, was this guy messing with her. It was impossible to read other people's minds. Nami's eyes narrowed at the straw hat, "That's impossible, I've never heard of anyone ever being able to read another person's mind."

"It's not reading minds, I can sense people's emotions and guess from there what that person is thinking. It's a skill that I started train to learn when I was seven years old." It didn't take Luffy's observation haki to know that Nami's interest was elevated, so he answered first before she could ask how it worked, "I'm sorry, but I can't tell you how it works or how to do it. I made a promise to my teacher that I wouldn't tell anyone except my future crew how to do it after I felt they were ready to learn."

"And what if I don't believe you?" She asked.

"Then that's your choice," Luffy laid back down, getting relatively comfortable in the wooden boat. "Doesn't matter though. You're a kind person, I know that you wouldn't attack me. Who ever it is that caused you to hate pirates must have done something terrible to you. That's not what being a pirate is about." He clenched his fists in anger.

Nami really wanted to blow up in his face, however she managed to hold in her anger. They had already gone through this conversation before. "Then what does being a pirate mean to you? Why are you setting out to be one?" She whispered back heatedly.

Luffy took the straw hat off his head and placed it in his lap. A smile grew on his face as he stared at it. "I made a promise with the man who gave me this hat that I would be the pirate king. At first I thought being the pirate king meant finding the ultimate treasure." Luffy almost sounded whimsical as he thought about his past promise.

"I told you that my brother was killed right?" Luffy looked up into Nami's eyes.

"Yeah you did." She responded, not sure where he was going with this.

"My brother grew up as a noble of the Goa kingdom, he ran away to be a pirate because his parents didn't give a shit about him. They only cared about him marrying into a royal family to keep their prestige up…" Luffy paused to get his thoughts together, "He was killed by a world government ship right as he was leaving Goa. He wasn't even three minutes into his journey before they blew his ship up and killed him." Nami felt sick to her stomach, Luffy felt a couple tears roll down his cheeks at remembering that day.

"I decided on that day to set sail and live the life that he wanted. That's what being a pirate means to me. A pirate is the person with the most freedom, a pirate can follow their dreams and die for what they believe in."

The orange-haired thief didn't know what to say after hearing his story, she felt a few tears fall from her eyes. She got up from her seat and sat next to Luffy, her heart going to the man. 'Maybe I should tell him about Arlong.' She looked back at Luffy to find him knocked out, already starting to snore again.

"What the hell!? He just told me something that emotional and falls asleep immediately after! This guy really is an idiot!" Nami wasn't too angry, she was already starting to figure out how his mind worked. She just smiled and laid down next to him. It took a couple minutes, but she finally fell asleep.

 **[=]**

 **And there's chapter one.**

 **So, what did you think? Did you like it? Hate it? If you have the time to review, please do. I would love to hear what you guys think so far of the story!**

 **That was a decent amount of writing, 11,000 words before the AN. All of the chapters that follow after this one will be of similar length, give or take a couple thousand words. Chapter two is already shaping up to be around 16,000 words. Next chapter will be covering Shells town and Orange Island together.**

 **Remember, if you have any suggestions on crew members or relationships to let me know. I can't promise that I'll go through with them, but I will definitely consider any suggestions, provided that have a good reason.**

 **Anyways, I'll see you with the next chapter.**

 **Spirals has hidden offline.**


	2. The first mate! Captains collide!

**Hey guys! I'm back with another chapter of Will to Succeed. This chapter was a lot to write, over 15k before edits and author notes. To everyone who gave me feedback, thank you! You are seriously appreciated!**

 **Anyway, I do have a couple of questions I feel I should answer.**

 **For those of you who want Gin as a part of the crew, you will just have to wait and see what happens with him, I think a lot of you will like what happens.**

 **For those of you that want Vivi or Rebecca to be on the crew, I'm sorry to say that that won't happen. One of the reasons I respect and love the princesses is because of the fact that while they are happier with the straw hats, they put their duty to their people over their own happiness and understand where they are most needed and I feel that that is partially what makes them great characters.**

 **Lightningblade49: I ruled out Luffy with the gears in East Blue because I feel that he is already too strong with haki under his belt. I'm pretty sure I would be mad at myself if I let Luffy wreck Arlong or Krieg with a freaking Red Hawk or a Giganto Pistol and I'm sure everyone else would too. I want Luffy to be able to grow as a fighter and so I'm trying to balance him in a way that I can do that. The gears will come later on as well as another little surprise that I'm excited for.**

 **Readorcetics: Thank you for the advice and I do happen to agree with you. Character development is a major part of One Piece and there have been many points in the show (Luffy's childhood arc, Robin's story, Zeff starving just so Sanji could eat and survive, among many others that have been some of my favorite moments in almost every anime ever.) That's why I only want to add about 2-3 people max to the crew because I really want to focus on those kinds of character-building moments. It's a challenge to myself to build up on characters that we really don't know anything about without over doing it with a massive crew.**

 **MakubeDaKiddX: Thank you, I'm glad you like it so far! I won't be doing a love triangle, I'll read them if it's a good story, but love triangles and harems aren't really my thing. Too much complication in my opinion and I can only imagine the headache I'll give myself in trying to write one.**

 **Any way's how about we get on with the story…**

 **[ &]**

Morning finally came for the trio and promised a new and exciting day; too bad the excitement started a little too early for a certain Straw hat.

"Luffy, you pervert!" SMASH

"OWW, what the hell was that for!?"

Nami was the first person on the small boat to wake up, she opened her eye to find the sun beaming down in her face. There wasn't a single cloud in the sky and a seagull was lazily float in a soft breeze above the trio. She tried to sit up, but noticed there was a weight on her chest, holding her down. She looked down to notice that Luffy was practically laying on top of her.

Apparently, he moved around a lot in his sleep. And he had a knack for finding really uncomfortable positions to lay in. Probably didn't matter to him, rubber body and all. He was laying diagonally across the small boat, his feet were up and over the edge of the boat, just above the sea water. It was a good thing he took his sandals off at some point in the night or they would be floating with the fishes. He was laying on his stomach which looked really uncomfortable on the wooden boards. That wasn't the issue, the issue was that the top half of his body was sprawled across her. He had an arm wrapped around her waist and his face was in the middle of her chest, using it like a pillow. His other hand was entangled in her hair, just about caressing her head.

She blushed a hot red when she noticed that she had one arm wrapped around his upper back and the other hand was on top of his head, practically pushing his face further into her chest.

She freaked out and did the first thing that came to her instinctually, she punched him on the head as she roared, "Luffy, you pervert!"

"OWW, what the hell was that for!?" He rolled off of her quickly, not even realizing that they were just in a compromising position before he woke up and clutched his head with both hands.

"Like I said, for being a pervert!" She shouted, waking up Coby in the process.

Coby jumped up at the unexpected shouting and slightly calmed down after he realized it was just Nami and Luffy.

Luffy sat up, clutching a giant lump on the top of his head with both hands. 'Oww! Does she already know how to use the color of arms? That hurt way too much to be a normal punch.' He looked over to the girl in question and saw that she had her face turned away from him, facing out towards sea. Her arms were crossed under her chest. He took a read of her aura with his haki and noticed that she was… embarrassed? Neither him nor Coby noticed that she was still sporting a healthy blush on her cheeks. 'What did I even do?'

"S-so," Coby spoke up, not sure if he should step in on… what ever this was, "How far are we from Shells Town?"

Nami regained her composure and scurried over to her backpack, where she produced a map of the east blue and a compass. After studying it for a moment she responded, "We're really close, we should be able to see the outline of the island in the next 15 minutes or so."

"Are you still going along with your idiotic scheme?" She asked Luffy, completely forgetting what happened earlier.

"Scheme?" He tilted his head to the side in confusion, a hand stroking his chin in thought. "What scheme?"

The other two occupants in the boat face planted, "I'm starting to think that you don't have a brain in that head of yours. You know, your scheme to get the pirate hunter on your crew?"

"Oh yeah! That. Shishishi, I'm not planning anything. He's just going to join my crew, nothing else to it." He gave them a huge, beaming smile.

"You at least have to commend him on his confidence, I guess." Coby said while they both sweat dropped.

"Hey look! I can see the island." Luffy pointed out in the distance, directly ahead of them. He looked back at Nami, "Your navigation skills are great, you should join my crew too!"

While flattered by his assessment of her skills, she wasn't going to be joining a stupid pirate crew. Even if she did like the captain somewhat. "Nope, no way. I hate pirates, remember?" She formed an 'X' in front of her with her arms. "I'm only going to be with you guys on this island, after that we are going on our own separate paths."

He laughed obnoxiously, "Come on, it'll be a lot of fun. There will be lots of singing, adventures and meat!"

The girl sweat dropped, did he really use singing and meat to try and tempt her to join his crew, "WHAT KIND OF SIMPLETON DO YOU TAKE ME FOR!?" She shouted at the straw hat pirate. Seriously, she was beginning to question what kind of repercussions his crazy training caused from when he was younger.

The small group of allies continued to banter all the way until they finally docked in Shells Town. They found a restaurant to relax and treat themselves to lunch. About half an hour later, the pirate was full, patting his rather largely stretched stomach. Nami, Coby and everyone else in the restaurant stared in shock, not a single person in that room had ever seen a single person eat that much food, that quickly. Most people looked at their own plates and lost the will to eat their food. Multiple appetites were lost on that day.

"Alright, I'm full!" Luffy stood up, his bulging stomach bouncing up with him. Everyone's jaws dropped and their eyes bugged out when Luffy closed his eyes and concentrated for a moment. His stomach shrank while simultaneously every one of his muscles bulged outwards slightly.

"Wha-what was tha-that!?" Coby stuttered out.

"I forced my body to instantly digest all of my food and spread the nutrients where they were needed." Luffy said with a pinky up his nose, acting like it was the simplest thing in the world.

"What kind of freak are you!?" The entire restaurant yelled at the same time which amused Luffy to no end.

"I'm awesome, that's what. Anyways, come on guys. I want to go see this Zoro guy with my own eye's." He didn't tell them that it was a mix between training with his insane grandpa and being a rubber man that made the feat possible.

And just like that, all of the locals in the bar jumped back in fear, almost as if Luffy had just threatened their own lives.

"Huh?" The trio wasn't expecting such a large outburst at the pirate hunter's name, what did he even do here?

"Well that was weird, I knew that he was feared through out the east blue, but to get this type of reaction here. I wonder what he did." Coby voiced those thoughts, "I saw a sign outside that said this marine base is under the command of a man named Captain Morgan."

The reaction from the locals was odd at the mention of Zoro, but Coby was straight up shocked to watch everybody react even harsher at the name of the marine captain. "What is the meaning of th-this?" Coby could understand being scared of an evil pirate hunter, but why be scared of a man who is supposed to uphold the peace on the island? Nami and Luffy didn't have any kind of reaction as they had both experienced this kind of thing before.

"I told you that pirates can't always be cut from the same cloth, it's the same with marines and anything else in the world. But there's only one way to find out, lets go to the base." The duo followed the pirate out of the restaurant and made their way to the highest point of the island, where the marine base was located. When they finally arrived to the outer wall of the base, Luffy hopped up and peaked his head up over the wall. "I wonder if I can find Zoro."

"I doubt they would just leave a criminal where anyone…" Coby was cut off when Luffy said that he found the swordsman. With Luffy's assistance, Nami and Coby got on the wall to take a look. They weren't expecting what they saw in the slightest.

Zoro was tied to a cross, he was really thin and looked like he hadn't eaten in weeks. The swordsman wore a green bandana, tied on his head and he had three piercings on his left ear. He was shirtless with a green sash around his waist and black pants with boots on his feet. The man looked up from the ground that occupied his sight when he realized that he was being watched. He saw two guys and a girl watching him from the other side of the wall. He was just about to call out for them to get lost when suddenly, a small ladder popped up next to the boy with pink hair. A small girl, the one he saved from the bar two weeks ago popped up and hopped into the court yard. She made her way over to the demon of a man and held up a napkin with two onigiri and offered them to him.

"Get lost before I kill you." He said in a deep and gruff voice, it was obvious that he hadn't used it recently. The girl and him both knew he wouldn't do anything to her even if he could. "I made these for you. You must be hungry." The girl told him.

"I told you to get lost little girl, before I kill you." He threatened again.

Two members of their audience were freaking out. Nami and Coby were trying to convince Luffy to go and save the girl before it was too late for her. Luffy wouldn't move a muscle though, he could sense Zoro's emotions clear as day and he knew that he was trying to get the girl to leave while keeping his own dignity intact. Zoro didn't want the girl to be caught by the guards or worse, by the bastard who ran the place.

"No, just watch what happens next. If anything bad happens, I'll step in." Luffy spoke in a calming tone, which seemed to do the trick and calm down the coward and the thief.

A gate opened up in the court yard to the right of the group and they all looked over to see a kid with blond hair and a massive butt chin. He was wearing a navy double breasted suit with contrasting red sleeves and collar and a gold chain on his neck. He stepped into the court yard and casually made his way over to the child and the swordsman. They all noticed that he had two marines following directly behind him and he sported a nasty smirk on his face.

"Yes!" Coby whispered to himself, but Luffy and Nami still heard it, "The marines are here, now the girls safe." The pirate and the thief knew for a fact that that wasn't the case though.

"Ahh, Zoro it appears that you have a visitor today and she brought a snack." He snatched the onigiri from her hand.

Zoro was angry that the brat came to visit him, "Shut up bastard."

"I wouldn't talk to me like that. I'm Helmeppo, son of the great Marine Captain Morgan! I'm sure you wouldn't like the consequences." The captain's son took a second to bite into the onigiri.

"Hey! That's not yours!" She shouted, a couple tears falling onto her cheeks.

He spit the rice out of his mouth as quickly as he had originally snatched it, "Blea, what the hell is this? It's too sweet, your supposed to pack it with salt! Not sugar!" He threw the rest of the onigiri on the ground and slapped the one out of the little girl's hands and started to stomp on them until it was resembled a paste.

"Your so mean! I-I worked so hard on those!" The girl started openly crying now.

"You should have read the sign over there," The jackass pointed to a sign behind him, "You should know by rule of captain Morgan, assisting a criminal is punishable by death." He told her.

Over the wall with Luffy and the others, Coby's hand clenched into a fist and he started shaking. He couldn't believe that marine was using his power like this. It was unthinkable to the pink haired kid. How could someone who was supposed to uphold justice be the very person who abuses it. He swore that he would never act that way.

Back in the court yard, the blond decided that he wasn't going to have her killed and instead turned to one of his guards, "You there!" The man saluted to his boss, "Throw that girl over the wall."

"B-but s-sir, she's just a little girl!" The man stuttered, he really didn't want to hurt her, she was so young after all.

"You better do it, don't make me get my daddy!" That shut the marine up instantly. He walked over to the girl and crouched down next to her. "I'm sorry about this, but I have no choice. Curl into a ball, that should reduce the pain." He whispered to her as he stood up and grabbed her. The man tossed her straight over the wall, feeling guilty the whole way through.

The girl passed right over the trio and Nami was about to call for Luffy to catch her, but to her astonishment, he was no longer in his spot on the wall. Her and Coby turned around and caught sight of Luffy landing in a crouch, the girl safely secure in his hands. He set the girl on the ground and tried to calm her down, "Hey, you're a big girl, right? There's no need to cry! Go back home, I'll go save Zoro and then we can meet up with you later."

A smile formed on Nami's face, she didn't know that the idiot pirate had such a soft side to him.

Luffy turned around and his face showed that he was all business now. His right eye shadowed ominously by his beloved straw hat and the pupil in his left eye shrunk, betraying no emotions. He walked over to the wall that separated the marine base from the rest of the town and leaped up and over it with just one jump. Upon jumping over, he saw that Helmeppo and his two guards were still there. He heard Zoro saying something about lasting the rest of the month before he landed on the ground. Zoro, Helmeppo and the marines all turned to look at him as he kept striding forward.

"Who the hell are you?" The blond asked as his two guards pulled out standard issue swords and positioned them towards the trespasser.

"I'm the man who's going to kick your ass!" Luffy kept moving forward, not even paying attention to the swords aimed at him. His gaze was set solely on the blond bastard.

"D-do you even kn-know who I am? I'm Helmeppo, son of the famous Marine Captain Morgan! Your dead if you try and touch me!" The menacing look in Luffy's eyes was scaring him and his men shitless, "M-men, attack him!"

The two marines lunged at Luffy, intending to end him quickly. No one, not Helmeppo, the marines, Zoro, Nami or Coby expected for the pirate to block both blades with his wide-open palms and pull the swords away before the marines could react. To their surprise, not even a single drop of blood fell from his palms. None of them knew that he had applied haki to his hands to prevent the swords from puncturing them. The two soldiers started shaking in fear and fell back on their butts, while everyone stared in awe, nobody even paying attention to the fact that Luffy was still holding the swords in his hands.

Helmeppo fell to the ground and stumbled backwards, trying to get as far away from the man as possible, "Stay back! Don't kill me, please!" The captain's son begged for his life.

"Get lost." Luffy told him, to which the coward happily obliged and sprinted as fast as his feet would carry him back into the base.

After making sure that no one else was around, Nami and Coby hopped down from the wall and walked over to Zoro and Luffy.

Luffy stopped just in front of the tied-up swordsman, the two staring at each other for what felt like a long time. Studying each other.

Nami and Coby were starting to sweat. The men were staring at each other with such scrutinizing and intense looks, it almost looked like they were waging a war in their heads. They didn't know if it was their imaginations, but it felt like there was an ominous aura around the two.

Finally, Zoro spoke up and broke the silence, "Who the hell are you? Get lost, that bastard is definitely going to get his father down here now!"

"Your pretty strong." Luffy completely ignored him and sat down right in front of him, setting the swords down next to him, "I can tell just by looking at you. So, what's your dream?"

The random question threw the swordsman for a loop, not expecting it. But he wasn't going to tell the guy about himself if he didn't have to, "And why does that matter to you?" He growled out to the straw hat.

"I want you to join my crew."

"You're a pirate." Zoro stated, "Why would I want to get mixed up with someone like you? That's only going to cause trouble for me."

Luffy smirked, "A little trouble never hurt anyone. Besides, either way I look at it, you're in some kind of trouble anyways. Do you really think that Helmet guy is really going to let you go? That guy gives me a bad feeling. Plus, I bet they think we are already working with each other."

That made Zoro think, 'He's right, that brat is definitely not honorable. That bastard and his father are feared by everyone in the town and by the marines too and then this idiot had to come in and threaten the captain's son.'

"And what are you suggesting?" Zoro wasn't ready to receive help from this guy, but he was interested in what the guy had to say.

"Between you and me, I'm confident that there isn't a single marine in this base capable of beating us. I'm sure you know that as well," Zoro nodded in the affirmative, "I give you these two swords, we free you and then we go up into the base and kick everyone's asses. I personally want to beat up this captain."

Simple and effective, the swordsman liked it, but he wanted to see what the guy would do if he didn't want to play a part. "And if I didn't want to go through with your plan and wanted to stay here?"

Luffy shrugged, "I could still let you free, but I don't think you would like that. So, in that case you probably die. Like I said, they probably think we are working together."

Zoro gave it another moment of thought before speaking up, "The world's greatest swordsman."

Nami and Coby looked confused while Luffy smirked and cut the ropes, "If you stand in the way of my dream, then you will let me cut you down with my own swords." Zoro grabbed the two marine issue swords as soon as he was freed and held them to Luffy's neck, testing his resolve. He wouldn't serve under a weaker man.

Luffy nodded in agreement, "I'm Monkey D. Luffy and as the future Pirate King, I would be embarrassed if my first mate was anything less than the greatest swordsman!" They both smirked, before the swordsman dropped the swords from his new captains' neck. Each of them had difficult dreams to achieve and they would do everything in their power to see those dreams happen.

"As of this moment, I am now an outlaw. I'll follow you to greatness or die trying! Let's go get my swords back and teach these bastards a lesson." Zoro announced.

At this point, Nami and Coby were gaping like fish. Neither of them understood anything that just happened, one moment the swordsman was threatening to kill their friend and the next he is pledging his allegiance to said man.

"Woohoo! I just got my first crew member," Luffy started doing a stupid little victory dance, "Let's go kick some ass!" He ran ahead of the group.

Zoro turned and glared at the other two people with him, sending shivers through their bodies, "Did he just say first crew member? What did I just get myself into? I thought he was joking when he said first mate."

"U-uh" They stuttered, they were trying to form an acceptable answer when they were freed by Luffy calling for them to hurry up. Both took off in relief as they were given an excuse to get away from the man known as a demon throughout the east blue.

The pirate hunter watched them take off before he looked down at the rice that had been previously stomped on, his stomach growled in anticipation. He shrugged before picking it up and eating it, never catching the happy eyes of the little girl watching him from the ladder on the wall.

Zoro moved over to the rest of the group and right as they were about to open the gate to enter the base, the main doors to the base opened up and at least 20 troops came out carrying guns followed by a hulk of a man with short blond hair, a metal jaw, and a massive axe as a right arm. The group of four could tell that the arrogant bastard was Helmeppo's dad because the slimy little blond was hiding behind him.

"How dare you!" The man grunted out, "Today was a special day to commemorate my greatness! And you lot had to ruin it by entering MY marine base. Now I have to wait to put up my special statue."

To everyone's shock and growing horror, Luffy just randomly busted out with laughter and started to roll on the floor, "H-hey cut it out. I can't take your voice seriously, you sound like you have diarrhea! And the things that your talking about are even shittier." Luffy continued laughing as jaws dropped all around him.

"Grr!" The captain's face was bright red in anger, "Do you even know who your talking to brat!? I am the great marine Captain Ax-hand Morgan." He yelled as if that would make the kid realize his mistakes.

It was safe to say that he got even angrier when Luffy got up and started making jokes, calling him 'Private shit-stain' and 'Captain Ass-hand Maggot'

"Shoot him! I want him executed now!" All the marines aimed their guns at the straw hat pirate and fired immediately.

"LUFFY!" Zoro, Nami and Coby cried out, thinking he was going to die before their eyes.

Luffy just kept on laughing, not even acknowledging that he was being shot at. All of the bullets hit their mark and instead of penetrating through the pirate's skin, his body gave way where each bullet landed as far as it needed until all of the bullets lost their momentum. Everyone stared in shock as Luffy snapped back his skin and sending every bullet back at the marines, being careful to make sure none of them killed his enemies. "Shishishi, see I'm really strong!" He gripped his left bicep with his right hand.

"What are you?" Zoro asked his captain, his mind must have been playing tricks on him. Maybe he was delusional from being tied up with nothing to eat for two weeks.

"I ate a devil fruit, I'm a rubber man!"

"Guns wont work on him," Morgan shouted to him men, "So take your swords out and cut his head off!

Nami and Coby hid behind Luffy and Zoro, as the marines all pulled their swords out and charged the duo.

Zoro and Luffy turned to each other, Luffy giving a huge smile and Zoro smirking. "I hope you can keep up Luffy, I won't serve a person weaker than me." Both shot forward into the group of marines.

Zoro was like a demon, weaving through his enemies and leaving long, shallow slashes on the marines as he passed through them. None of the men could even keep up with his brute strength and his speed. It was hard to believe that this man had been tied up without food for two weeks. He finished them quickly in order to watch the straw hat fight his opponents.

Luffy was defeating his enemies in an entirely different way, he stayed stationary in one spot and let his opponents come after him. Between his observation haki and the flexibility of his devil fruit powers, he dodged every single slash and stab. Any blades that he couldn't dodge, he would snap like a twig. He quickly grew bored and ended the fight with a quick snap of his leg and twisting around, calling out 'gomu gomu no muchi'.

The duo quickly defeated the marines and grouped up again, "Not bad, you have some quick reflexes." Zoro commented casually, as he caught Luffy's eyes.

Luffy was a different story, he had massive stars in his eyes as he shot over to Zoro, "That was so awesome! You were like 'shing', 'shing', 'shing'." Luffy made his interpretation of a cutting sound and ridiculous thrusts with an imaginary sword.

"Right…" Everyone sweat dropped while Zoro stared at him in disbelief, 'I decide to follow this guy and he turns out to be a major idiot… Great…'

"Don't disrespect my greatness with your foolishness!" Morgan jumped at Luffy with his Ax-hand aimed to bisect the pirate that was mocking him and his underlings.

"LUFFY!" Nami and Coby shouted out, scared to see him be killed.

The newly made pirate captain just kept on babbling excitedly about how cool Zoro was as he casually reached both arms up above his head and caught the blade between his hands, completely stopping the momentum. His body twisted at the stomach as his legs spun into a perfect roundhouse kick, yet the top half of his body continued facing Zoro, still talking. The kick wasn't very strong as there was very little momentum behind it, but it was still enough to send Morgan skidding back.

"You can handle this, right? I still need to go in there and get my swords." Zoro pointed towards the big blue tower that served as the marine base.

"Yeah go ahead, this will be easy." Luffy gave the swordsman a thumbs up.

"I'm going too, there is something here that I want." Zoro and Nami both took off into the base, one to get his swords and the other to get her hands on an important map.

Luffy turned back to Morgan and crossed his arms, staring at him defiantly.

"I'm going to kill you and then I'll enjoy killing your friends after." The captain brandished his beloved axe in his remaining hand.

"I'd like to see you try!" Luffy gave the man a cocky grin.

"DIE!" Morgan rushed forward and slashed at Luffy, intent on cutting the annoying straw hat in half. Luffy took a step back, just outside of the axe's reach and threw his arm back. The axe cut the ground up and sent chunks of dirt in all directions. Taking a step forward, Luffy called out "Gomu gomu no pistol!" and slammed his stretched-out fist into the captain's chest. The captain was thrown back into one of the walls and knocked out by the solo punch.

Luffy sweat dropped, "Well that was lame, I thought he would actually give me a harder time…"

"He did it!"

"We're free from Morgan's reign!"

"Hurry and secure him!"

All of the marines were shouting and cheering as the tyrannical man had been defeated and they no longer lived in fear.

"N-no way! Daddy!" Helmeppo was shocked when his father was defeated, "Unhand me! That's an order!" He shouted out as the marines cuffed him and tied up his father.

Luffy just stood there and picked his nose with his pinky as the soldiers gave there thanks to him and Coby was speaking about how amazing Luffy was.

"Shishishi, I am pretty awesome."

Nami and Zoro

Zoro had no idea where to go and so Nami suggested that he follow her just in case they run into any of the marines. She quickly and efficiently found the room that she was looking for, the room with all of the valuables stored. She quickly picked the lock and gathered everything of value, putting it all in a sack that she conveniently found in the room and made her way over to the safe in the wall opposite of the door. It took a little longer to crack the safe then she would have hoped, but it was a newer model. One that she didn't have much experience cracking.

Meanwhile, Zoro was currently interrogating some unlucky marines to find out where his swords were currently at.

She finally opened the safe and greedily put her hands on what she thought was the map of the grandline she had heard about. When she opened it, she cursed loudly, "Damn it!"

"What's wrong?" Zoro asked as he walked into the room, a still conscious and freaking out soldier being dragged behind by the collar of his shirt.

"It's not here!" She didn't say anymore, however Zoro could see that she was thinking intently, "I'm going to get my swords. Take me to them." Zoro turned around and stepped out of the room.

"Y-yes s-s-sir!" The scared marine shouted unnecessarily to the swordsman.

"I'm coming too." Nami said as she continued thinking to herself. 'That paper said that Buggy the clown took the map. I could try and steal it myself, but from what I've heard about him, that probably won't go over well. But if I can convince Luffy to help me then I could get the map and all of Buggy's treasure…' She followed the marine and the swordsman to a room that looked like it belonged to a six-year-old girl as she finalized her plan.

Zoro walked to the corner of the room as he spotted his blades and picked them up, returning them to their rightful place. "Let's go find Luffy."

"Right!" Nami responded back.

An hour later

After the group met up again, the girl that Luffy saved from being thrown over the wall revealed her name to be Rika and took them back to her mother's bar. News spread around town like a wild fire and soon everyone was celebrating the defeat of Captain Morgan.

Rika's mom gave them a free meal in gratitude. Luffy was stuffing as much food in his face as he could while Zoro was hammering down food and rum in large quantities. Nami and Coby just stared at them both, they were a bit more understanding towards Zoro considering he hadn't eaten in weeks. Luffy on the other hand had the largest meal either had ever seen and that was not even three hours ago. 'That is seriously disgusting.' Nami thought with a sweat drop.

"How are you eating more than me? I haven't had anything to eat in weeks!" Zoro voiced in between swigs of rum.

Luffy had hearts in his eyes, "Because this food is so good and I'm hungry." He said right before he literally shoved an entire plate of food down his gullet and pulled the plate back out, spotless.

"I think I'm going to be sick!" Coby put both hands over his mouth as if he was trying to stop himself from throwing up.

All festivities stopped as the front doors opened up and marines came in, everyone facing their way.

"We are very thankful for you freeing us of the dreaded Captain Morgan, however we must ask that you leave since you are pirates. We wont report you to headquarters though as you have done this town a great service." The leading marine said.

All of the locals started voicing their objections to the decision, not wanting to see the group that liberated them leave, however Luffy spoke up over everyone else, "That's fine. Let's go." Him, Zoro and to his surprise, Nami all stood up to leave and as they walked out the door, the marine asked if Coby was a pirate too.

"Him, a pirate!" Luffy scoffed, "I wouldn't want him on my crew, besides last I checked, he was on a fat whales shi…" He was cut off when Coby shouted out for him to stop before punching him in the face. Luffy decked him back and made like he was going to continue, but the marine told him to stop and leave the town. Luffy winked at Coby before turning and walking away, as he stepped out of the restaurant his vest billowed in the wind.

'He wanted m-me to punch him. Lu-Luffy!' Coby turned away from the straw hat, thankful to his friend, "Please," Coby bowed to the marine, "let me join the marines!"

"Why should we? Pirates have been known to plant spies before." One of the soldiers said behind the man in charge. Coby started to sweat in fear.

"It's okay, I will allow him to join."

"Thank you, thank you!" Coby bowed as tears threatened to fall from his eyes, to his relief, his dream was finally starting to come true.

As Coby's dream was taking it's first step, the small crew made their way to the docks. Ready to leave.

"Are you leaving Nami?" The straw hat questioned the orange haired girl.

"I actually wanted to talk to you about that, I wanted to ask a favor." Nami started, "You see, I'm in search of a map and I know where it's at. I just don't have any chance of obtaining it by myself. So, I wanted to see if I could get your help."

"What would we have to do?" Zoro questioned, he was a little suspicious of what she would have them do.

"The map is in the hands of Buggy the clown, he is one of the most feared pirates in the east blue and I'm not strong enough to take him on if I'm caught, but I'm sure you guys are."

"What would we get in turn?" Zoro shot back.

"I really don't have anything I can give you guys, but I'll sail with you guys for a little longer." Nami tried to make herself more appealing to the two men, bending forward slightly and showing a slight peek of her cleavage, in the hopes that they would react. Neither of them moved their eyes in the slightest or even acknowledged the move at all, to her slight disappointment.

"It's your call captain, I say we leave her." He received a fist to the head from Nami for his thoughts.

Luffy gave her a massive smile as she looked back at him, "Of course we will help you! You're my friend, I don't want to find out you got hurt." She wasn't expecting that answer and blushed slightly.

"Hate to interrupt, but you need to get going." A marine told them, to their annoyance.

They finally reached the dock and found the boat that Luffy and Nami had arrived in. After they loaded up, they realized that they didn't have all that much space anymore, Nami had another bag of treasure with them and Zoro was definitely bigger than Coby was. "Well this is going to be a tight ride." Zoro said as he got in, already falling asleep at the very front of the boat, where Coby had slept previously.

"What the hell!?" Nami said as she watched Zoro fall asleep instantly. Luffy got in the boat too while Nami untied it from the docks and pushed them out towards the wide-open ocean. Nami realized how little space there was left as she blushed. Her and Luffy were sitting in close proximity to each other with not a whole lot of space left over. 'We should have asked for a bigger boat.' She thought to herself.

"Goodbye!" Rika and the towns people shouted.

"Bye Luffy, bye Nami. Thank you for everything!"

The marines and Coby shouted to the crew as the marines all saluted, the two still awake occupants of the boat waved back to them as they continued to float away from the island.

"I'm going to set our heading. Help me with the paddles." Nami said as she grabbed her map and compass from her small bag. It took them at least five minutes to get the boat set to head towards the islands that she had heard Buggy was currently making his territory.

The two awake occupants noticed that nightfall was slowly embracing them. Nami vaguely realized that they spent the entire day in Shells town and were kicked out on the same day that they arrived. Another day that she wouldn't be able to sleep in a bed. Her cheeks slightly flushed at remembering how she woke up this morning as she glanced over at the rubber captain.

"Something wrong?" Luffy asked as he noticed that the navigators gaze was focused on him.

"U-um nothing," She flushed even further, "I'm just going to get some sleep. It's been way to exciting a day for me." She lay down next to the young man, once again realizing that there wasn't very much space between them. "Good night."

"G'night!" He responded back.

As she slowly drifted off into unconsciousness, Luffy lay down next to her. His mind was elsewhere, thinking about how far he had made it so far and a couple different promises that he made through out his life. As he continued thinking, he never noticed when he too was claimed as unconscious.

Two days later

SMASH! "DAMN IT LUFFY!" Nami shouted over the fallen captain, her fist smoking from the punch. "Stop stealing food from me! You ate your own breakfast!" Zoro was behind her, smirking away. He wanted to do what she just did, but the navigator beat him to it.

Zoro wasn't sure how he felt about joining Luffy yet. It was clear that the guy had a strong drive to see his goal realized, he supported the swordsman's own goal and the guy was pretty strong based on what he had seen so far. Questions kept on popping up in the swordsman's mind as he remembered the way Luffy fought the marine grunts yesterday, it almost seemed like he knew what they were going to do before they moved, even those that got behind him and were out of his sight. He would have to find out later on so that he could possibly replicate the same skill.

What still kind of irked him was the fact that the man was unreadable. He could be a genius one moment and then a complete idiot the next. Luffy wasn't like any other pirate he had ever seen and it confused him to no end. His inner musing was interrupted by said captain.

"Oww! What the hell was that for?" He shouted back at his temporary navigator.

"You stole my food moron! We don't have a whole lot in here and we need it to last until we reach the Orange Island." What she didn't mention was the fact that they had a weeks' worth of food when they first set out from shells town, Luffy had eaten most of their provisions in the span of two days and it was driving the girl nuts.

"But I was hungry!" The man whined back as if he was a little child.

"Why did I even join you again?" She asked herself, although the rest of the small crew heard it. She wouldn't admit that she liked being around Luffy, it made her take her mind off of her situation and past.

"Because I'm awesome" The straw hat had a massive grin on his face.

Nami and Zoro sweat dropped, "Yeah that's it…" they both said in unison.

"Anyways, we should be at the Orange islands in about…" Nami was cut off by Luffy shouting excitedly.

"Hey look, a bird! I want to eat it." Luffy's arms stretched out and caught the bird. Instead of pulling what he thought was a small bird down, he was pulled up into the air by the large bird that caught the rubber man's hands in its beak. "Woo-hoo! Bye guys, I'll see you later." Luffy was pulled away in the direction of Orange Island.

Zoro face planted, while Nami's eye twitched and her fist clenched, "I'm not going to kill him, I'm not going to kill him!" She repeated that golden phrase to herself like it was a life line, "Damnit, I'M GOING TO KILL HIM! Zoro he went that way, grab the paddles. We have to catch up!" She shouted, in complete contradiction to her previous phrase.

Zoro grabbed said paddles and started pushing the boat through the water faster than Nami imagined that he could and she started screaming as she fell backwards, "AHHH! Slow down!"

Luffy

Luffy was currently hanging in the air, his arms caught in the beak of a massive bird. He had to be hanging just under a thousand feet above the ocean, his major weakness. If he was dropped, there was no ifs, ands or buts, he would die. So, one might expect that he would be scared for dear life. Nope… Not Monkey D. Luffy. Luffy was currently laughing his ass off as if he was in a roller coaster ride, not even caring that his demise lay just under him. He only focused on one thing, his newest adventure!

Like all good things though, it had to end. His ride was cut short when a cannon ball flew up from the island that he had just recently flown over. The cannon ball slammed into the bird, causing a big explosion and dropping the now dead bird and Luffy to the island below. Both landed relatively close to each other in some sort of set up base. Luffy stood up and shook the dirt off his clothes and hat that somehow never left his head. 'Where am I?' His inner musings were cut off with the cheering of a large group of… circus freaks?

Luffy looked up and his eyes met the odd face of Buggy the clown, he had blue hair, a captain's hat and a cape surrounding a red and white striped shirt. A purple scarf and sash tied around his neck and waist respectively. The odd thing about the man was his impossibly large red nose on his face, that thing had to take up a lot of his eye sight. Luffy blinked a few times, 'I wonder if that's his real nose?'

His thoughts were interrupted by the red nose shouting, "Hey you! You flashy bastard, where did you come from? Are you a bounty hunter after my head?"

"Huh?" Luffy responded intelligently, "Is that nose real? Cause its really big and red!"

The entire circus, no… pirate crew gasped, this idiot just sealed his fate.

"Grr!" Buggy growled at the perceived insult, "Lock him up, I'm feeling pretty festive so lets party then take him out after!" The crew cheered as two nameless grunts grabbed Luffy and led him to a cage. He just followed in annoyance because the stupid red nose wouldn't even answer his question.

After Luffy was locked into the cage, the crew started partying. The bird from earlier was cooked over an open flame, everyone started drinking beer and horribly off-key songs were sang. Luffy was even having a great time and managed to steal some meat from one of the grunts and sang along as he ate.

"Bring forth the Buggy Ball!" All festivities died as a couple of pirates brought over a cannon and two red cannonballs with the Buggy pirate's jolly roger painted on it. "It's time for this flashy bastard to meet his end. I, Captain Buggy will end him with my greatest strength, the buggy ball!" Buggy started to talk directly to his captive now, "Watch well bastard, with the Buggy ball and my own strength, I will conquer the grand line. Fire!"

One of the captain's subordinates loaded the cannon while another lit the fuse. When the cannon fired, the ball was shot straight through a full row of houses causing an explosion when it met it's finally mark at the other end of the village.

Nami and Zoro

BOOM! Nami and Zoro were currently running through the village looking for their stupid captain, when suddenly a blur moved past their eyes and wrecked multiple houses before finally smashing into a hill on the other side of the village where it created a large explosion.

"What the hell was that!?" The swordsman shouted.

"I have no idea. But if I had to guess, I bet I could tell you where Luffy is." Both of them faced the direction where the explosion came from, in the short time that they had known Monkey D. Luffy, they had found out that he had quite the habit of running into or attracting trouble.

"Let's go!"

Luffy

The men who fired the cannon started rolling it around to face Luffy as the straw hat pirate started laughing, "Shishishi, Your pretty funny big nose! How can you conquer the grand line when it's going to be me who does that?"

All of the grunts stared at the caged man in shock while Buggy's face turned red in rage, his face almost the same color as his nose. How dare this brat mock THE Captain Buggy! "Shoot the cannon, NOW!" He roared to his subordinates.

"Hey, you guys are going to shoot the cannon again? That's so cool! Wait don't aim it at me, what are you doing!?" Luffy started freaking out when the cannon was loaded and one of the pirates struck a match.

"DIE BASTARD!" The fuse was lit and the cannon resounded with a large 'BANG' causing everyone's ears to ring. The cannonball smashed into the cage with enough force to throw up a dust cloud and shield the captive's fate from everyone.

"NO, LUFFY!" Nami and Zoro shouted. They arrived when Luffy started freaking out and only just got close enough to watch the cannon fire. They were too late to save their captain. The Buggy pirates cheered as tears came down Nami's eyes and Zoro was angry to watch the man that not only acknowledged his dream, but had his own dream that was just as crazy die.

'Luffy… How could you. The first pirate that I actually liked… and your dead just like that. I'll never forgive you!' New tears flowed down her face at the fate of the only person that she actually wouldn't mind calling captain.

Zoro was getting pissed, he gripped one sword in each hand. His knuckles were turning white with all of the pressure that he put on the handle of each weapon. He would make these people pay for what they did to the first man he would ever willingly follow.

Buggy was cackling in pure joy. 'Serves the flashy bastard right for talking back to me!'

All thoughts of celebration, rage and sadness ended immediately when someone started laughing like a mad man. Everyone realized that the laughter was coming from the dust cloud as it slowly started to disperse, the sight that greeted everyone when the dust cleared caused every jaw to drop and every eye to bug out in shock. Everyone watched as a man that should by all rights be dead, was currently standing in the middle of a cage with broken bars where the cannonball passed through. He had the ball in the palm of his outstretched right hand and was currently laughing his ass off, not a care in the world. It took the man a second to calm down before he finally spoke.

"Shishishi, Bummy you should never joke around about killing people, it's not funny. Anyways, I'm bored of playing around. I don't want to be in this cage anymore."

Nobody could still form a coherent sentence as they just watched Luffy do a perfect split kick, his foot smashing into the ceiling of the cage and completely tearing it off from the bars. He casually hopped out of the former cage and stood in front of it, still grasping the ball in his hand. "Here, I'll give this back. Thanks for letting me borrow it!" Luffy exclaimed, a large grin on his face as he pitched the cannon ball back at the pirates as if it was a baseball.

The ball found it's mark right in front of the pirates, the sheer force of the impact causing it to explode, engulfing Buggy and his clowns.

"I'm just going to stop questioning anything around you." Zoro stated.

Nami nodded while speaking her own thoughts, "This is getting ridiculous, what kind of overpowered freak are you!?" This guy was single handedly challenging pretty much every belief that the navigator held in her life. What next? Was the guy going to start knocking people unconscious without even touching them?

She wasn't going to admit to the jerk that pretended to die that it hurt her to watch.

"Hey guys I found you!" Luffy yelled in enthusiasm to his crew.

"NO, WE FOUND YOU!" They shouted back in irritation.

"Shishishi, you guys are funny! Let's go find some food, I accidently blew up all of their food and I'm really hungry right now." His point was made when his stomach growled loud enough that it sounded like an angry bear.

Both Zoro and Nami facepalmed, why was their overpowered and charismatic captain an idiotic five-year-old in an adult's body?

"Wait!" Nami shouted as Luffy and Zoro started a search for food and booze respectively, causing them to stop and turn back to her. "Buggy and his crew are right here, you said you would help me to get his map and treasure!" She wasn't going to let these guys just walk away after they said they would help her.

"We will! We just have to get something to eat first and it's kind of boring to take something from someone else without fighting them first!" Luffy said as if it was common etiquette.

"I agree," Zoro gave his opinion as well, "They better have booze in this village, I need to drink. I'm not a thief either, all I want is a good fight."

She considered just moving in and taking everything quickly, but she didn't want to risk Buggy or one of his officers being conscious still and attacking her.

Nami's head dropped in disappointment, 'Why me?' She begrudgingly followed after the two guys, all the while grumbling to herself about an over powered idiot and an arrogant swordsman.

The group walked through the village, noticing that there was no one to be seen, "That's strange, where is everyone?" Nami broke free from her depression and quickly noticed the lack of noise.

Luffy took a second to focus his senses and felt for any aura's in the area. He quickly locked on to the Buggy pirates that were slowly getting back up from Luffy's returned gift and he also found a dog a couple of blocks ahead of them. It took him some additional focus, but he locked on too many 'voices' hiding in the woods outside of town. "They're in the woods. The pirates forced them to leave town. Follow me, I want to see something."

The trio followed the road for a little longer before they came upon a scarred dog sitting obediently in front of a pet store. Luffy came up to the dog and sat down in front of it, "Hey, what are you doing?" Luffy asked as he and the dog made eye contact.

Nami watched with irritation written on her face, "It's a dog, I don't think it's going to answer you."

The dog started barking back at Luffy. The pirate smiled and nodded back to the dog. "You're a good friend… chou-chou." Luffy noticed the dog tag and read the name.

"You understood him?" Zoro and Nami called out, sweat dropping.

Luffy ignored them for a moment and continued talking to the dog, "I'm sorry about your owner, but I'm happy that you can still have your treasure though. Guard it well." Chou-chou barked back while wagging his tail in happiness.

"You can understand animals?" Zoro asked.

"Yeah, I don't know why but I've always been able to understand most animals."

Nami sighed, "I'm just going to give up on trying to understand what you can and can't do…" She said quietly causing Luffy to laugh.

All discussions were stopped when suddenly, a giant lion with some weird freak riding on top of him walked up to the group. The freak had white hair… or fur in the shape of a shirt on his chest and the same hair… or fur on his head, wrapping around and down to his chin with ears shaped on his head out of the hair… fur. The man was saying something to the lion, but they only caught the second half of it, "Yes Richie, that pet food store is over here, you can eat everything after we finish the straw hat kid and his friends." The duo soon made it in front of their targets.

"Well, look what we have here. So, you're the kid that attacked my captain, you don't look like much to me." The man shifted on the lion's head slightly and smirked at the group ahead of him. "You guys got my cap'n really worked up and he sent me, Mohji the lion tamer to get rid of you guys." He continued.

Luffy completely ignored the pirate, "Hey, that's a really stupid costume you have on your head."

"WHAT!?" Mohji shouted in rage, "This is my hair, I'll kill you! Get him Richie!"

The lion swung out at the straw hat pirate with his paw, intent to crush the man. Intentions are one thing, but reality, or at least Luffy's opinion was another thing entirely. He easily lifted a hand to intercept the paw, with a slight application of armament haki, he stopped the paw from smashing him into the side of a building. Nami and Zoro were expecting something along these lines, for the first time since they met Luffy, neither of them was all that surprised. Richie and Mohji though? They were slack jawed at the lack of the idiot who defied their captain being sent flying away. Who was this guy?

"What did I hear you say about that pet food store?" Luffy stared at Mohji, a slight scowl breaking out on his face.

"What's it matter to you, you'll be dead here soon. Tear him to pieces Richie!" The Lion lunged down at Luffy with his jaw wide open, right as the beast was about to chomp down on him, he gave a vicious uppercut into the beast's lower jaw. Its mouth snapped shut as its head was thrown upwards, throwing Mohji off the tamed animal as it fainted from the single blow.

"Ri-Richie!? You'll pay for that!" The Buggy Pirate ran forwards with his fist clenched, preparing to punch the monster that just beat his adorable pet. As Mohji got close, Luffy just slugged him in the face with a fist and sent him skidding across the paved ground where he finally stopped next to the corner of the guarded pet store, seemingly knocked out.

"Well, that was uneventful…" Zoro trailed off. "Wait, why do you get to fight everyone!?" Zoro suddenly yelled out, annoyed that his captain was getting all of the action.

"Who goes there!?" A voice suddenly yelled out, catching the group of four's attention. They looked to see an old guy adorned in iron armor and a make shift spear on his back. "Is-is that Mohji the lion tamer? What's going on here?" He asked.

"Oh, that weird haired guy? I think his name was mangey or manga or something like that, I beat him up." Luffy responded with a splitting grin on his face.

"Who are you anyway, are you one of the villagers?" Nami asked the old man.

The old man was visibly shocked that this small group managed to beat Mohji, one of the major menaces of the town. "Yes, I'm actually the mayor of this town, my name is Boodle. I'm here to feed Chou-Chou."

"Why does he stay here when everyone else in the town ran away? Nobody tried to take him?" Nami asked the mayor with her hands on her hips.

"Because," Boodle started as Luffy walked over to the dog and sat down, petting him to the mayor's shock. The man paused briefly to watch the spectacle before finally continuing his explanation, "He's guarding this shop. A good friend of mine opened this shop with Chou-chou almost ten years ago, those wounds are from protecting this store from those pirates."

Nami looked upset, she was about to ask where Chou-chou's owner was, but realized that Luffy said something to the guard dog about his owner. She and Zoro quickly put two and two together and realized what happened. "Is the owner… gone?" She asked sensitively.

"Yes, he got sick and was hospitalized three months ago and asked Chou-chou here to guard the store. Unfortunately, he passed on not long after and left poor Chou-chou alone. I come here as often as I can to make sure that he is fed and safe. He refuses to leave, no matter what I say. This store is his treasure and he won't leave it behind."

Zoro smirked, "The dog has guts, I'll give him that."

"I thought you were awesome before! But after hearing your full story, you're really a good friend!" Luffy told the dog as he continued stroking his fur.

Unknown to the crew, Mohji regained consciousness half way through the story and was listening intently. He slowly reached into his pocket and produced a lighter, 'How about a little revenge, let's see how these guys handle the stupid store going up in flames.' Mohji used the lighter to ignite the building. The sound of him starting the lighter up caught the attention of the group just as the shop went up in flames.

"Ruff Ruff Ruff!" Chou-chou shot forwards to the building, wanting to stop the last remaining artifact of his master from being destroyed.

Luffy's fists clenched in anger as he moved over to the beaten pirate. Mohji looked up at the captain and the sight he saw made him tremble. Luffy's face was shadowed by his beloved straw hat and he could feel the anger washing over him in waves. "You made a mistake." Luffy spoke slowly in a tone that was way to calm for the rage that weighed heavily in the area. Even Boodle and his crew were sweating and he wasn't even mad at them.

"I won't forgive you, that was Chou-chou's treasure. The only thing he had to remember his friend by. I'm going to make you pay." Luffy reached down and grabbed the man by his face, lifting him off the ground. The man struggled against his grip, but found his efforts to be futile. Luffy punched him hard enough in the gut to make him wheeze for air before throwing him upwards and kicking him hard enough that his now unconscious body cratered the ground when he landed.

Without a single thought, Luffy set his beloved hat down and rushed into the burning building. Everyone was shocked by his actions. Did he have a death wish?

After a couple of minutes, Luffy finally emerged from the wreckage as it could no longer be called a building, holding as many boxes of non-burned pet food as he could carry and set it down in front of the grieving dog. He had a couple burn marks on him, but was otherwise okay.

Luffy sighed before sitting down next to the dog, slowly stroking his fur again. "This is all I could save for you, boy. You did your best, I bet you fought hard to keep it safe. I think your friend would have been happy." He passed the dog a big grin.

The dog sniffed at the food before wagging his tail and licking the boy's hand.

'I can't believe it. A pirate risking his life for someone else.' Nami's life experiences led her to believe that pirates were terrible people who only knew how to pillage, rape and destroy. Ever since she met Luffy, he was steadily shattering all of her expectations. Everything from his actions to his carefree attitude threw her for a loop.

"I can't take this anymore," Everyone's attention snapped to the mayor, "You lot have done so much for this village already, yet I have been cowering in fear. I won't let them wreck forty years of our hard work building this town, I'm going to face those pirates and do whatever I can! I won't lose this town to them!"

"Hah! I like your style old man, your speaking my language." Zoro grinned, eager for a good fight.

"Your right old man, it's time to kick some ass." Luffy stood up as he adjusted his hat.

Boodle started taking off in the direction of the bar that the pirates were inhabiting.

"You can't be serious! Luffy you're not going to let him fight, are you? He'll die!" The Navigator pleaded.

"Of course not, I like the old guy. The three of us can handle this." Luffy shot forward, almost instantly catching up to the mayor and grabbing him by the arm. "Kid, what are you doing!?" The old man shouted.

"There are times when you need to stand up and fight, but there are also times where you need to know that you can't fight on your own. Chou-chou and the people of this town need you. Go get them and live for your treasure, we're going to beat Bummy's ass!"

"B-but I." Boodle wanted to argue, but the stern glare that Luffy gave him, changed his mind. He slowly nodded back to the boy and moved back over to where Chou-chou was sitting by the remain dog food.

"Zoro, Nami, come on we have a clown to beat up."

"Thought you would never give the order." Zoro smirked in anticipation.

"You guys handle the fighting, I'm just going to rob them blind." Nami's eyes lit up, all that treasure was calling out to her and it sounded angelic.

Luffy picked his hat back up and placed it back on his head. The group started walking back to the bar, eager for the fight ahead of them, until Luffy finally realized something, "Uhhh…" Luffy dropped to his knees.

"What's wrong!" Nami started freaking out, he seemed fine the entire time. Did he reach some kind of limit and couldn't do anything else?

"We never had lunch… We left Bummy's base to get food, but we never got it… So… hungry… wasting away." Luffy started whining to the point they thought he was going to die.

"YOU MORON!" Nami smashed her fist into the top of his head while Zoro kicked him in the side. "You actually had me worried for a moment."

"I swear, you have the mental capacity of a three-year-old. Aren't you even scared to fight Buggy, he's notorious in these parts!?" Nami sighed.

"Who's Buggy?" Zoro and Luffy asked in all seriousness.

"THE GUY YOUR ABOUT TO FIGHT! Buggy the Clown. He tried to kill you earlier. Me and the mayor were talking about him. Zoro, you should at least know who he is considering you were a bounty hunter!" She sighed for what felt like the millionth time, 'Why did I get stuck with these idiots?'

"Oh, you were talking about Bummy! You had me confused. And why should I remember weak losers?" Luffy stood back up, no worse for ware after taking the abuse from his crew.

"Whatever you guys were talking about was boring, so I took a nap. I haven't gotten to fight anyone yet so I'm bored." Nami face palmed from Zoro and Luffy's stupidity.

"Right… Why did I expect anything better from you guys? Let's just get this over with." She hid a small smile from them. Truth be told, even though she was scared, their carefree attitude helped to calm her nerves.

The group finished their walk back to the bar that served as the headquarters for the Buggy pirates. As they turned the final corner, they found the entire crew surrounded around Buggy and a cannon sitting next to him that was positioned towards town. Buggy was currently in the middle of addressing his crew, "Alright flashy bastards, prepare the cannon. We are going to smoke Straw Hat out of town and take his head." Buggy was going to continue talking, but he was cut off by said Straw Hat.

"Hey, Bummy!" Luffy shouted his greeting out.

Buggy turned to face Luffy and waved, "Oh hey Straw Hat, nice to see you! Anyways," Buggy turned back to address his crew again, but then he realized who it was that he just spoke to.

"STRAW HAT, YOU FLASHY BASTARD! MY NAME IS BUGGY, NOT BUMMY! FIRE THE CANNON! I WANT HIM DEAD."

The pirate crew quickly loaded the cannon and lit the fuse. When the cannon fired, Nami and Zoro were going to run, but stopped when they saw Luffy stay in place with his arm held forward. "Don't worry guys, I got this!" The Buggy ball slammed into the palm of his hand and he let his rubber body absorb the impact. He only slid back an inch from the attack.

"You know Bummy, this didn't work on me last time. What made you think it would this time?" Luffy pulled his arm back and pitched the ball back, engulfing the roof of the bar in an explosion.

"Leave some for me, Luffy!" Zoro's annoyance clear in his voice.

"Shishishi, sorry Zoro."

The smoke slowly cleared to reveal Buggy and his second mate, Cabaji still standing. Each of them was holding two no name pirate grunts in front of them to shield them from the blast. They each let go of their respective shields before climbing out of the rubble that remained from the bar.

"Cap'n, this is the worst disgrace that we've suffered since you formed the crew." Cabaji grabbed onto his sword and hopped onto his… unicycle?

"I'm so angry that I can't even speak." Buggy shook in anger.

Luffy just smirked at the other Captain, "Sounds like your speaking to me, eh Bummy?"

"That does it, I'll kill him cap'n." Cabaji shot forward on his unicycle, his sword brandished to stab straight through Luffy.

Right as the acrobat reached Luffy, Zoro intercepted his blade and held him in place, "You better not think this settles things Luffy, one little clown with a sword isn't near enough for my appetite."

"Sorry Zoro, next time. I want to kick Bummy's ass for using his crew to protect him."

"Hmph, fine. Next time you better stand out of my way, I need to get stronger."

"So, I wasn't wrong," The two men were interrupted by Cabaji, "You really are Pirate Hunter Zoro. Are you here for my Captain's head?"

"I couldn't care less about your Captain's head. I gave up bounty hunting, I'm only here on my Captains orders. Now shut up and fight me!" Zoro quickly palmed his other sword and swiped forward, forcing the acrobat to back off.

Cabaji moved forward again, intent on striking for first blood. "I intend to. Killing you will boost our reputation!"

"Breath of the death!" The acrobat pulled his scarf down and let loose a burst of fire from his mouth, Zoro avoided the worst of it by ducking backwards, although he still took a lick of the flames on his left arm. Cabaji followed up with a kick to Zoro's head.

Zoro quickly reacted and met the pointed shoe of the Buggy pirate with the pommel of his left katana, "Have you no honor as a swordsman, using these cheap tricks?"

"Doesn't matter if they are cheap, as long as I kill you!" Cabaji pulled his foot away from Zoro as he dug his sword into the ground, "I call my next trick… Murder at the steam bath!" The acrobat flicked his sword up towards Zoro and let loose a spray of dirt to distract him as he swung his sword at the former pirate hunter's neck.

"I'm getting tired of your stupid tricks." Zoro popped his prized sword into his mouth and in the same motion, unsheathed his third sword as he closed his eyes and parried the acrobat's blade with the sword in his left hand.

"Zoro! That was so cool, your awesome!" Luffy had stars in his eyes as he watched his first mate fight.

"Luffy!" Nami whispered, "Can you keep Buggy distracted? I'm going to go steal their valuables and the map."

"You bet! I still got to teach Bummy a lesson for the mayor guy and Chou-chou." Nami just smiled fondly as she took off. She found it pretty funny that Luffy could not remember the name of a dangerous pirate to save his life.

Luffy looked over to Buggy to make sure that he wasn't paying attention to Nami at all. The captain never noticed, he just stood with his arms crossed and a scowl on his face as he watched Cabaji and Zoro fight.

Speaking of the fight, Luffy looked back at the fight and watched as Cabaji cycled up the side of the building and yelled out some idiotic name for the technique. A look at Zoro's face told the straw hat that the swordsman was completely underwhelmed with this fight to the point he looked like he might spontaneously fall asleep on the spot.

Cabaji finally reached the apex of his climb and kicked himself away from the building. He started descending towards the swordsman with a call of, "sting of the unicycle" He gripped the sword with both hands and aimed it at his opponent, prepared to run him through.

Zoro sighed, 'why did I have to fight the weakling? I'm over this, I just need some booze.' The swordsman bent his knees slightly. In the corner of his eyes, he vaguely made out Luffy stopping Buggy's hand from interfering in the fight.

"Let's end this!" Zoro pushed his leg muscles and meet Cabaji half way. In a flash, the two combatants passed each other. Not even a second later, Zoro's swords were sheathed and he descended back to mother earth. At the same moment, the tire of the unicycle was slashed and the air escaped it and twin geysers of blood flew from the acrobat's chest in a neat 'X' shape. Cabaji fell back on solid ground in a heap, already unconscious.

"Hmmph," Zoro smirked, "A real swordsman would never lose to your pathetic parlor tricks."

"Shishishi, nice job Zoro! You sure showed him. It's my turn now!"

"Aye, aye captain." Zoro noticed the sun reflecting from something in the corner of his eye, he looked over and smirked when he noticed an unharmed bottle of whiskey against the side of a building, "I'll be over there, enjoying some booze."

"Shishishi, go ahead. You deserve it."

By this time, Buggy finally got over the shock of watching his second mate be defeated. "You! Who are you bastards?" He palmed four daggers in each hand, one in between each knuckle.

Luffy lowered his head, his prized hat shadowing his eyes as a hand was reached to the brim of said hat, "Me? I'm Monkey D. Luffy, the future pirate king. And I'm here to kick your ass and take your map!"

"WHA!" Buggy gaped in shock, "You pirate king? Don't make me laugh boy, if you're the king then that makes me the god of pirates! You wouldn't even stand a chance in the Grand Line."

Luffy just laughed and stuck his tongue out, "What would you know big nose? I still see you here in the East Blue, weakest of the seas. I bet little tiny Bummy is scared of the world!"

"WHY… YOU…!?" Buggy growled, "DIE!" Both of Buggy's hands disconnected from the wrist and shot at Luffy with surprising speed. Luffy was slightly caught off guard by the absurd attack, but still weaved in between the two hands that were set on impaling him. He thought he was out of the woods and started walking towards his opponent, but jumped out of the way as he sensed the presence of the two hands doing U-turns and speeding back towards him. The hands reunited with their resting places on Buggy's wrists.

"I have to admit, you have good reflexes." Buggy stated, "But, you're not going to beat me, stupid rookie."

The fight continued with Buggy repeatedly using his chop chop cannon to try and stab Luffy. Luffy just continued to dodge each attack to the clowns growing irritation.

"Why won't you just die? Just looking at you makes me angry, especially that stupid straw hat! It reminds me of that insufferable red head." Neither of the combatants realized that Nami had been back for some time with the treasure and the map as they kept talking.

"Wait you know Shanks!?" Luffy asked.

"Hmm… Yes, I know him, what's it to you?"

"Do you know how he's doing? It's been years since I've seen him." Luffy sounded kind of excited.

"So… that must be his hat then, no wonder it looks so familiar. Why would I give a damn how that bastards doing!?"

"What!? How could you hate Shanks? He's awesome, he taught me everything I know about being a pirate!"

'Who are they talking about?' Nami thought to herself as she stuck her head out from the building she was hiding behind. She looked over towards Zoro and found that he was just as confused as she felt.

"Shanks and I were once cabin boys on a pirate crew together." Buggy explained, "My dream has always been to claim every treasure in the sea. One day that changed after we plundered another pirate crew and I got my hands on a treasure map and our crew gained a devil fruit. The rule on the ship was that who ever wanted to eat it, could have it. So, I pretended to eat it and kept it hidden so that I could sell it. A couple days later, I was admiring it and Shanks caught me off guard, I shoved it in my mouth to hide it, but accidently swallowed it." Buggy started growing angrier, "I started yelling at Shanks and he noticed that my map was flying away. It fell in the ocean and I jumped after it. Those that have a devil fruit can't swim and so Shanks had to save me.

"So, Shanks saved you?"

"Yeah, so what!?"

Luffy laughed, "Shishishi. You're an idiot, you should just be happy your alive!"

"It was all his fault! He made me swallow a hundred million berries and ruined my plans!"

Buggy's hands were floating in the air behind Luffy and he willed them to sneak up behind him, "After that day, I changed my plans. If I couldn't have all of the treasure in the seas, then I would just have all of the treasure on land!" The hands thrusted at Luffy's back, but he sensed them and landed a couple feet away from Nami.

Buggy noticed the girl as the straw hat jumped in her direction and was enraged by what he saw, nobody took his treasure and lived to talk about it, "DIE!" His arms shot towards Luffy.

Luffy was just about to dodge out of the way, but he stopped when he felt a familiar flash in his head that he had only felt one time before, about four years ago. His eyes flashed red briefly as he watched himself jump out of the way and Buggy's hands redirected towards Nami. Each of the knives in both hands imbedded deep into the navigator's chest, blood gushing from the stabs, as she coughed up blood. Nami died almost immediately after. The scene ended just as quickly as it started and Luffy realized that he couldn't move or Nami would die.

Luffy relaxed his body slightly, each muscle coiled and ready to act at a moments notice. The knives came closer and, in a flash, Luffy grabbed the appendages holding them in place.

"And here I thought the only thing you knew how to do was dodge. Why the change of tactics?" Buggy asked.

Luffy just glared at him, "You wanted me to dodge. I wasn't your real target, Nami was." He tightened his grip on Buggy's wrists, causing him to yelp in pain.

"She deserves it! She's trying to take my treasure."

"You're not harming my navigator, you'll have to kill me first!" Luffy threw the hands back at Buggy and started running at him. What surprised Buggy was that Luffy's hands just stayed in place as his arms stretched out, "Y-You're a devil fruit user."

"I am…" Luffy reached Buggy and let his hands snap back, "Gomu Gomu no… BAZOOKA!" Both of Luffy's open palms slammed into Buggy. The momentum traveled from the strike into the clown and sent him flying away, he swiftly disappeared into the sky, clearly flying far away from the island.

"Bye Bummy, safe travels!" Luffy yelled out into the distance.

The remaining Buggy pirates could only watch in awe, Luffy had just been playing around with their captain the entire time. It only took one strike for him to be completely defeated.

"Good job Zoro, you were awesome out there!" The straw hat complemented his first mate before looking to his navigator, "Did you get all of their treasure?"

"Of course, I did! What do you take me for? I'm the best thief on this side of the ocean." Nami's chest swelled up with pride.

"Good, leave half of it here." The captain ordered.

"W-why!? I earned it fair and square!" Neither of the guys felt like challenging that flawed statement so they ignored it.

"Because, these people need it just as much as you do. They probably don't have anything to rebuild their town with. If you still need to collect more beri for your village then I'll help you."

Nami looked shocked and a bit bashful, "Fine I guess your right, I'll leave some of the treasure." She could see the parallels between this town and her own island. Even though she really wanted to take it all for herself, she did understand they were just as needing as she was.

"How did you know why I was collecting money?" She asked, not expecting him to know the reason.

"Because you said it when you first met me and Coby, when you thought we were going to die from one of the marine ships firing on us." Nami vaguely realized that he was correct and was surprised that he remembered a small detail like that.

All further discussion was interrupted when Boodle and Chou-chou arrived with all of the villagers behind them. "You actually did it. You saved us!" Tear started flowing from his eyes. The rest of the villagers started shouting thanks to their heroes.

"HEY! DON'T CALL ME A HERO!" Luffy shouted out, shocking everyone including Nami and Zoro with his attitude. "Do you even know what a hero is?"

Everyone continued to look at him in confusion, "Say you have a piece of meat, a hero would share it! But I'm a pirate, I want all of the meat for myself!"

"I like the way you think Captain! I need some booze." Zoro agreed.

Nami just facepalmed, although she had a smile hidden under her hand, 'Your one of a kind Luffy, never change.'

The villagers laughed as Boodle asked how long they planned to stay in town.

"We should actually get going, do you possibly have a bigger boat for us to use? Ours is getting cramped." He asked.

"Don't worry about it Luffy. Buggy had a bigger boat docked right next to ours, we should just take both."

"Well since you plan on leaving, let us prepare some meat and booze for your journey as a thank you for saving us."

Zoro smirked at the idea of more booze for the voyage.

The straw hat pirates made their way back to the dock and prepared for their next adventure as the townsmen prepared their gift to the 'non-heroes'. Unfortunately, the boat that they were taking had a sail with Buggy's jolly roger on it, but the boat would do for the time being. After everything was all packed, Boodle and Chou-chou said their final good byes and the group took off.

A couple of hours have gone by since the trio left the town and everyone was settled down and eating dinner.

"Luffy." Zoro called for his attention.

"Whath up, Zoro?" Luffy responded back with a mouthful of food, earning a smack on the head curtesy of Nami.

"On the next island I want to fight you." The swordsman had a glint in his eyes, "It's clear to me that your stronger then everyone we've come across, I want to see how strong you actually are with my own eyes."

Nami looked concerned, "Is that really necessary? Luffy is freakishly strong on his own. I've only seen you fight twice, but if the rumors I've heard about you from when you were a bounty hunter are true, then where ever you two fight at is going to take some heavy damage!"

Luffy just smiled at the swordsman, "That sounds like fun! It works out to cause it will give me an idea of your strengths. Just so you guys know, when we get a couple more crew members, I will be teaching you guys some techniques I know and I'll be requiring everyone to train in them."

Nami pouted, "Does that mean me too?"

Luffy nodded to her.

"Why? You know I'm not a fighter!" Nami tried to reason with him.

She was a little surprised when Luffy gave her a serious look. "We will be going into the Grand Line, that place is full of people who are just as strong as me and even stronger," Nami gulped, she couldn't imagine that after all that she had seen him do. "Me and Zoro won't be there to fight every battle, so you and any other crew members will need to be able to hold your own in a fight. It's for your own safety."

She sighed, "Fine… I guess. So, what's the plan now?"

"That's easy," Zoro responded, "We got the map, now we go to the Grand Line."

Luffy grinned, "Yup, what Zoro said."

"Are you guys idiots!?" Nami yelled at her companions, "Who in their right mind goes to the Grand Line, also know as the pirate's graveyard with only three people and two small boats. We would be killed!"

Luffy gave the idea some thought, shocking both of his crew members. "Huh, I guess your right. We still need a musician and a ship!"

Both of them face planted into the boat, "Why the hell would we need a musician!? What about a cook or a doctor? I don't want to die at sea!" Nami took deep, calming breaths.

"Because pirates like to sing! It makes the adventure way more fun."

'Maybe we need a therapist too… These two are driving me crazy.' The navigator held her thoughts to herself.

"Maybe your right though, we should get a cook to make us yummy meat. Why would we need a doctor though? I've never been sick before."

The swordsman agreed, "Me neither. A doctor doesn't seem that useful."  
"Not everyone is a freak of nature like you guys! Getting sick sucks a lot and what will you do when you get injured in a fight really badly?"

"I drink whiskey and sleep it off."

"I eat a lot of meat."

Nami sighed for what felt like the millionth time, "I give up…"

"Shishishi. Your right though, let's get a couple more crew members and a ship before we head for the Grand Line. Where we going next Nami?"

"We should be on the next island in two days, there's a small village there. We should focus on getting a ship." She responded.

"I'm excited to stop, I need a good fight!" Zoro smirked as he settled down in the back of the smaller boat, "I'm getting some sleep, wake me up when you need me to keep watch."

The responsible member of the crew nodded back, "Alright Zoro, we will."

"G'night Zoro! Don't let dream me beat you up too much." The swordsman glared at his captain for the remark before closing his eyes and setting his precious katanas down in his lap.

The two remaining crewmates fell into comfortable silence. Luffy was humming a song that the navigator had never heard before and thinking about how awesome his next adventure would be. Nami was gazing at the clear night time sky, admiring the gleaming stars as she thought about how much her life was changing recently since she met the two knuckleheads.

"Hey Luffy." She called, "What did you and Buggy mean when you said that I was his target? I was far enough away from you that neither of us should have known what he was doing." The question had been plaguing her since it happened.

He stopped humming and sighed, "It's not really easy to explain and I want to wait until we have a couple more crew members, but I can tell you how I knew what he was planning."

Luffy hopped from his and Zoro's boat to hers and sat down directly across from her. "My teacher taught me how to use two mystery powers, one of them allows me to do a lot of different things like sense people around me, feel their emotions and one of the more difficult abilities allows me to see slightly into the future. During the fight, I had a future sight and watched him kill you after I dodged his knives, so I stayed in place instead."

Nami gasped, the ability to see into the future sounded really useful to the navigator. That also explained why the pirate captain stopped the attack instead of dodging, she had seen a decent amount of their fight and she knew Luffy wasn't fighting seriously at all. "So, you did it to save me?"

Luffy gave her a huge smile, "Of course Nami, your my friend! I would do anything for you."

Critical hit!

Nami blushed, for being an idiot, Luffy sure had a way with words. His words made her think about a certain fishy problem that she had, "Even if it cost you your life?" Nami whispered as tears threatened to fall.

"Yep, even if it costs my life! I made a promise long ago that I wouldn't live with any regrets, I couldn't live with myself if I let you or anyone else, I care about suffer. I would rather die!"

The navigator was shocked by his declaration and met his eyes with her own. His smile was so genuine and bright in the otherwise dark night. If she was being honest, she found warmth in it.

Her mother, sister, and all of the villagers popped up in her head as her desire to keep Luffy far away from her home island slowly crumpled, "Luffy… please help me…" Tears finally broke free and flowed down her flawless skin, "Help me free my village, m-my family… and me." She gripped her arm where the hidden jolly roger that carried so much hatred, fear and oppression lay.

The captain took everything in stride and motioned towards her shoulder, "Show me!"

"B-but Luffy." Nami didn't want to show him the one thing about her that gave her so much shame.

"Show me." Luffy said again more gently.

The navigator started having second thoughts, maybe she shouldn't get him involved. 'I should just run away! I don't want to be a burden to him, I can't let him die!'

All of her thoughts were broken when Luffy said one more thing to her, "It doesn't matter if you try to run away from me or your problems. As your friend and Captain, I will follow you to the end of the world if I have to. I decided that you are my navigator, so no one else can have you. The only one who can lead me to the One Piece is you, I won't let anyone else!" He stood back up and stared at her for a moment longer before turning around and moving back to his and Zoro's boat. It was almost as if he was daring her to try and leave them.

"Wait Luffy! I-I'll show you." She slowly lifted up her sleeve and carefully undid the bandages on her arm as Luffy came back and sat in his previous spot.

The sight he was given after she finished unwrapping his arm, made his blood boil. On Nami's arm, was the mark of another pirate captain. Everything started to make sense, her hate of pirates, the mark on her shoulder, why she was gathering money and it made Luffy more and more enraged.

Nami was growing more and more concerned as the seconds passed, the look in Luffy's eyes was downright murderous and a small part of her tried to convince her that his anger was aimed at her. Even though she truthfully knew that the anger couldn't be directed at her. So, when Luffy finally managed to speak, she squeaked in fear. She quickly let go of that notion as soon as she heard how soft his voice was.

"Who did this?" He asked again with the same softness, it almost made her think he wasn't that mad anymore, but his eyes were still hardened in rage.

"His names Arlong, he and his crew took over my village years ago. They killed my mother because she didn't have enough money to pay for our entire family to live. After he killed her, he found out that I was talented with navigation skills and forced me to work for him. He locked me in a room and forced me to hate my own dream. He forced me to make a map of the world for him." Her entire life story was laid out as Luffy listened on in silence, his anger intensifying as she continued on. She didn't know why she couldn't stop herself from talking about the past, but it was apparent to her that Luffy was like a stick of dynamite that blew up the dam of her anguish and sorrows, everything spilled out and he took it all up without saying a word.

After she finished, Luffy got to the most important part, at least in his eyes. "How far are we from your home?"

Her response was delayed by an inner anguish, unsure if she should lead him to the monster that enslaved her. "Probably two, maybe three weeks' time."

"Good, I need you to stay strong for a little while longer. After we get a ship and make a couple stops, we're going straight to your home and I'm kicking this fish guys ass!"

She couldn't stop herself from smiling even if she wanted to, as she hugged him, "Thanks Luffy!" He hugged her back, glad to see her cheering up.

The two continued to talk for a little while longer until Luffy yawned. The captain said good night to Nami and was about to move into the smaller boat that Zoro occupied, but he was stopped by Nami.

"Is something wrong?" He noticed that she was looking slightly nervous.

"No, nothings wrong. I was just wondering… if you could sleep in my boat… with me…" She blushed as she realized just how she worded that, clearly embarrassed.

Luffy just blinked in confusion. A shy Nami was a weird thing to behold after all. "Of course I can, why do you look so red though? Are you getting sick?" He placed his hand on her head to make sure she didn't have a fever, "Do you need meat?"

And sure enough, shy Nami was replaced by angry Nami.

'SMASH' "OW! WHY DID YOU HIT ME!?" Luffy yelled after he managed to get his face out of the indent it made in the boat.

"BECAUSE YOU DON'T KNOW HOW TO READ THE MOOD, IDIOT!" She shouted back, a massive tick mark on her head, "Now get over here, I'm tired and I want to go to sleep!"

Miraculously, Zoro never woke up from the yelling and instead gripped his swords harder, like a kid would hold a teddy bear and turned on his side.

Meanwhile, Nami and Luffy were laying down, the former using the latter's chest as a pillow and snuggling up to his side since it was cold out.

"Good night Luffy." She said to the captain, but realized that he was already sleeping and starting to snore. She giggled before closing her eyes and letting her dreamland embrace her.

The next day

"DAMN IT LUFFY, ZORO! I thought I told you guys to make sure we were facing south-west? So why are we going north-west?"

The guys got back up on their feet, large lumps on their heads, "I followed Zoro's lead because I have no idea how to navigate."

Nami's eye twitched in annoyance, 'Why doesn't that surprise me at all?'

"And what's your reason, Zoro?" She crossed her arms and glared at him. He was the infamous pirate hunter, one would think he had at least basic navigation skills.

"You told us south-west. South is always behind you and west is always to the left so that's where I turned the boats." Okay, maybe she had set her expectations for Zoro too high. He definitely wouldn't handle anything regarding navigation anytime ever!

Nami sighed, too tired to deal with this, "I'll get us back on the right heading."

When the crew woke up, Nami asked Luffy and Zoro if they could make sure they were moving along the right heading so that she could get their breakfast ready. She didn't really trust them to do it themselves since Luffy would probably eat all of the food and Zoro would start drinking early morning if he could. Honestly, did she have to be the only responsible person on the boat? Zoro was okay and she was starting to get pretty close with Luffy, but she honestly needed a sane person on the crew quickly to stop her from losing her sanity and brain cells.

The crew spent the day lounging around in the boats, Zoro was cleaning his prized sword that he gained from his former rival, Nami was taking advantage of the nice day and sun bathing. As for Luffy, oddly enough, he was meditating. Meditating isn't actually the best word, he was actually focusing intensely on his observation haki and trying to bring back the feeling that he had unintentionally used while trying to dodge Buggy's chop chop cannon. So far, he was having no luck in bringing back the sensation, no matter how hard he tried.

He was about to quit, when he suddenly felt the voices of a couple dozen people pass through the range of his observation haki. He focused in and quickly reasoned that they were pirates. His observation haki telling him that they saw the small boats and were planning to attack.

He opened his eyes and snapped to attention, his demeanor serious. "Guys there is a pirate ship coming our way directly ahead of us. Get ready for a fight."

Soon enough, a ship popped into the crew's view. It was a red galleon with a black cat sitting as the figure head and black trim. As the ship pulled up close to the two small boats, a strange man walked up to the side of the of the galleon backwards, "What are you Buggy pirates doing in these waters? Turn around or we will sink you!"

 **[X]**

 **And that's a wrap! Figured I would try my hand at a cliff hanger, makes me wonder what will happen next. I guess only time will tell…**

 **Anyways, what did you think? Did you like it? Hate it? Let me know, it will only take a moment of your time!**

 **Just to let you guys know, I will be going into my profile every couple of days to update my progress on Will to Succeed, so if you have any questions about that, take a look there.**

 **Thank you, guys/girls who tuned in, and I'll see you next time!**

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